By BRIDGET CARTER
Police are warning the public to beware of "sparkler bombs" - large numbers of the normally low-key firework bundled into a device they fear may kill or cause serious injury.
In the past two weeks, more than 20 cases of letterboxes being blown to pieces by the bombs
have been reported in the upper North Island. Police believe young people are learning how to make the bombs from overseas sources.
One bomb near Kaitaia blasted a letterbox an estimated 27m at the weekend.
Senior Sergeant Gordon Gunn of Kaitaia said it was only a matter of time before a sparkler bomb killed or seriously injured someone.
"They are playing with their lives in my opinion."
This is the first year sparkler bombs have been reported in New Zealand, say police officers spoken to by the Herald.
Twelve letterboxes around Kaitaia have been blown up in the past two weekends, seven have been destroyed in the Hamilton area, and a further two letterboxes in Rotorua have been blown up.
Police are still investigating all the incidents.
Far North resident Alan Wall said he went to get his mail on Saturday morning and found his letterbox in bits. The night before he heard a very loud bang, but thought nothing more of it.
"It wasn't until the next morning I happened to notice that the letterbox was in pieces," he said.
One piece of debris was 27m from where the $150 wooden letterbox had been.
The postie told him four more boxes further down his road had been destroyed.
Mr Wall, a teacher at Kaitaia College, said he had heard that students at the school had been talking about the devices and he had some idea of who might be responsible.
Mr Gunn said parents needed to realise that if their children were buying large numbers of sparklers, it was not for the "pretty sparkles". "They are playing with fire, literally."
