Tarawera Eruption

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 85, 27 April 1937, Page 13

Tarawera Eruption

STORY OF DISASTER Bishop Bennett's Address Td Napier Rotarians THE FAMOUS TERRACES Memories of ihe eruption at i Tarawera on June 10, 1886, were recalled in an address by the Bishop of Aotearoa, the Rt. Rev. F. A, Bennett, to the Napier Rotary " Olub yfcSterday. BishOp Benrett, who wan born and educated in the distriet, told his story partly from his own Obseravtions and partly from ihe re'cords he had collected from actual eyewitnesses and residents oi ihe distriet. At the tiine of the erUptio% Bishop Bennett was ih Nelson^ and a boyhood friehd at Te Wairoa, Adolphus Haz- j zard, sou of the sehooliiiftster, had written and despatched a letter to hira a few hours before the disaster. The letter was giveii to a sur'veyor in the distriet to post. Th§ lnab, Mr. SUndius, arrived safely throUgh the disaster, and still resides in Wellington. The sole referenee to atmospheric eonditions in the letter was that the night was a boisterous one, and in eouversation with natives in the distriet afterward, the Bishop has Oonfirmod this statfement. The Wind Was a southerly, causiiig many of the hot pools to dry up, as was usual iiL a southeriy wind. At sueh tidies the water ceased to xun over the famous white and pink terraees aiid resumed once moro when

the wind ehanged. The writer of the letter, his father Sfld two sisters Were all killed in the eruption. His mother, was pinned beueath a beanx from thelr falling house, buf reeovered after treatment in Ihe Sanatorium at Rotorua. Idvod on Tourists. ''The life of the Maori people in the distriet Was similar to that of others liviiig in the thermal area," continued the Bishop. "They lived on the tonrist trade. They were well-to-do, well-paid, and 4s the result is when people earn too much money, they began to squander it *and lead anything but an ideal life. Things were debased and dernoraiised With a certain seetion of the people. "I tell of this because it leads up to what Was felt strongly by the people themselves. Something had to be done to get them dut of this terrible groove, and many of the people felt that something more than a human being could do had to happen to bring them back to their proper bearings. "On the other side we had a Chris* tian missioh, With a very quaint little church, one of the oldest in the area. Many of the people were very Interested in the work of the missionaries. They had a choir, and Maori lay readers, but it was not until after the eruption that tho Rev. Mr. Waka Was ordained and took up his duties among his own people. "Tarawera means 'the burning peak,' but there was no record among tho people of the distriet that it had evef been a volc&no before. The faet that they gave it the name Tarawera, Jiowever, shows that there must have been some volcdnic aetivity there in the earlier days of the Maori occupation o.f the Dominion. The speaker stated that it was impossible to describe the beauty of the terraces, by day or by moonlight. Words coiild not be found to express the majesty, grandeur and dignity of the rock formations that had been called one of the wonders of the modern world. It had often been mooted that they might be discovered' again, bnt i'rOm his Own esperience the speaker eonsidered that they had been blown UEunder. There was ho trace of them ahywhCre, aiid at their foriner site was a great eseavation, now part of the lake itself. "Russian Invasion" Scare. The eruption scattered dust and sediment over an area of 5,000 square miles. In Nelson, where the Bishop was staying at the time of the explosion, the booming of the explosion could be heard, and as this was during the progress of a "Russian invasion" scare, it was felt by many people that the noise was the sound of guns from a Russian warship. The villages of Mora and Tareke were buried beneath 80 ,feet of mud, with all who lived there, and to this day they remained buried. Refugees began to straggle through to Ohinemutu, most of them with no boots and very . little other clothing, and the ordeals of those who remained during the first night of the eruption were terrible. One Maori, who was one of many who had taken xefuge in the house of Guide Sophia, performed valiant feats in supporting the sagging roof with boxes, and by using his bare hands to brush from the roof the red-hot lava and scalding mud which tUreatened to eugulf those in shelter below. One old man Was buried in a hufc and managed to live for three days, before a stiek which he pulled up and down through the mud above him attracted the atteution of rescuers. An old tohunga, who had steadfastly refus ed to wear pakeha clothing, was believed by some to have eaused the eruption by ineantations as utu or revenge for an insult to him by a alember of the tribe. He was finally rescued from his hut, but the subsequent washing and haircut he reeeived were too much for him and he died. In conversation with other survivors, who had also experienced the 1931 earthquake in Hawke 's Bay, the speaker had reeeived the information that the shock itself in the eruption was not so great as that in 1931. At the conelusion of the address, a vote of thanks was proposed Bishop Bennett by by Eotarian "W. Harvoy, who recalled seeing the shxp Southem Cross, which had been in the Bay of

Plenty at the time of the eruption, come into Napier with the ashes of the eruption still upon her deck.