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Meteorite Destroys Warehouse In Auckland, NZ

Posted by timothy on from the creative-excuse-for-the-late-night-set dept.

vik writes "According to local media, multiple eye witnesses are reporting that a meteorite crashed into a warehouse in Auckland, New Zealand last night, setting it on fire. The warehouse roof was destroyed but no nearby buildings were damaged and there was only one minor casualty — a man who happened to be inside the building at the time. The fire service have not yet made an official announcement."

7 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Minor? by DerekJ212 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Minor injury... sure.
    But minor casualty????

    1. Re:Minor? by jabithew · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Emergency wards on the NHS are often referred to as 'casualty'. This is not a comment on death rates in British hospitals.

      --
      All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
    2. Re:Minor? by Goaway · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not really "light-hearted parody", it's satire. And it's hilarious and highly entertaining satire.

      And part of the fun is watching the fans of the book complain about it, and the people who take it at face value complain for almost opposite reasons.

    3. Re:Minor? by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agreed. If true, it's actually a very interesting choice. In the UK we train our soldiers slightly differently, there's a little less gung-ho. Not much less, but a little, and outside of the basic training they're also taught to think about what they're ordered to do a little more.

      Neither of the two options necessarily makes a better soldier, it's just two different approaches, and Starship Troopers takes both to extremes. If you're a smart soldier you'll learn from it in the same way as you'd learn from Machiavelli or SunTzu. If you're not....hell, it's a good story and good propaganda.

      One of the more interesting asides on /. recently, and incidentally, meteorites rock. And metal.

      --
      Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
  2. Re:It's these meteorites killing our economy by Ron+Bennett · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They may, but in doing so could demand possession of the meteorite.

    The meteorite, depending on what's left of it and its composition, could easily be worth far more than the property damage.

    A quality meteorite is akin to money raining from the sky. If a nice big one ever hits my property, the first thing I'd do is secure it and shop the meteorite to perspective buyers.

    Ron

  3. I'm already skeptical by jesterzog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, I'd wait for the New Zealand Fire Service report before taking this seriously. All that the article says is that a warehouse caught fire in Auckland (not too unusual), and that people in Auckland saw a meteor and reckoned it "landed" somewhere near there. One person thinks he heard it crash with an exploding noise.

    In short, some spectators are claiming a meteorite was involved in the fire, and the media's jumped on it because it makes the story more interesting. The NZ Herald seems to be the only news agency in New Zealand which I can find that's spinning the meteorite idea (actually the NZ Herald and Slashdot now that I've checked Google News). My guess is that it's just a coincidence that the fire started at roughly the same time.

    People frequently see meteors in the sky and assume they can tell where the landed, even though most don't even land. People are nearly always wrong, and get confused by the perspective and brightness and distance which makes it look as if bright meteors are much closer than they are, and are heading much more steeply into the ground than they are.

    Until the Fire Service comes out and states outright that it was a meteorite, and perhaps finds fragments, I'm not going to give the claim much credit. For a warehous fire in Auckland, it's more likely arson or an electrical fault.

  4. we're laughing at you, media by Eil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sorry, but I'd expect an article of this calibre out of an 9th-grade journalism class, not a newspaper that calls itself The Herald. For entertainment purposes, let's take a closer look at this story, shall we?

    A spectacular fire stopped traffic and drew crowds of onlookers in Auckland last night.

    Fair enough. Big fires are kinda neat.

    The blaze broke out in a warehouse on the intersection of Ponsonby Road and McKelvie Street and eight appliances and two aerial appliances were used to quell it.

    Wait, what? Appliances? Were they throwing dishwashers and blenders at it?

    Firefighters were dampening down hotspots but by 11.30 the fire was out.

    It's unclear from this sentence just when the firefighters were dampening down hotspots. Before the fire? After? A week later?

    A man was inside the building at the time. He was taken out and treated for a minor cut to his arm.

    Here's where the real questions start. What what he doing in the building? Was he supposed to be there? How did he get the cut? Did he see/hear how the fire broke out? Isn't the whole point of journalism to answer questions? I would love to see an article that talks about why the author was unable to obtain the most basic facts about the story. Was the writer prevented from talking to the firefighters and police? Okay, that's a good reason but since it's not in the article I have to assume that the writer was just being lazy.

    And by the way, what happened to the good old days when every article came with a by-line so you know who wrote it? You never see those any more unless the writer is gunning for a Pulitzer in some long, drawn-out investigative piece.

    No nearby buildings were damaged, but the warehouse roof collapsed in the centre. The Fire Service is not saying yet whether it suspects the blaze was suspicious.

    "...suspects the blaze was suspicious"? Oh now he/she isn't even trying.

    Some people were convinced the fire was caused by what may have been a meteorite, which was seen from various parts of the upper North Island streaking across the sky just after 10 o';clock.

    Several callers claim the light in the sky was very bright, and it was described by some as a blinding flash. Others said it was trailing smoke.

    One man, Mike, says he saw the object crash with an exploding noise in the Ponsonby area, and reckons it could have started the fire.

    And now we veer headlong into the bizarre. As others have pointed out, meteors are not nearly hot enough to start a fire by the time they reach the ground so unless the place was storing flammable materials, a meteor did not start this fire regardless of whatever random passers-by thought they witnessed. (It should be noted that their stories are contradictory, so it's impossible to tell which, if any of them, actually saw or heard the meteor. People routinely make up stories and observations to make their own lives seem more interesting or important, especially in relation to some semi-major happening nearby.)