Ruapehu 'extinction theory' easily disproved by '45 schoolboy

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 608, 17 October 1995, Page 10

Ruapehu 'extinction theory' easily disproved by '45 schoolboy

To mark "Ruapehu '95" — the commemoration of the 1945 eruption of the mountairr, Ruapehu College pupils have prepared a series of articles based around interviews of witnesses of the 1945 eruption.

Long-time Raetihi resident B a s i 1 Ward's experiences in the 1945 Mt Ruapehu Eruptions, as told to Victoria Duigan: As a youngster in 1945 Basil regarded theeruptions as more of a spectacle than something frightening. He recalled seeing "a great column of ash just rolling out of the crater and going off towards the east". He also saw these lovely white things flying out of the crater and down the mountain, these were in fact (probably) very large

boulders. At night lightning displays could be seen from the townships below and it was a real thrill to watch and wonder what was going to happen next. The mountain readily gave off jets of steam and Basil said you were able to set your clocks to it. There would be certain times of the day, say about 5pm and up it would go again.

Only on a couple of occasions did Basil recall seeing ash showers. The easterly wind brought the ash showers and it covered everything. Cars had to be washed, roofs had to be washed, ash had to be swept away from houses and it was important that it didn' t get in the water tanks. Some thought it was good stuff to throw around

the paddocks as fertiliser. There was no evacuation plan but with that year being 1945 people were quite skilled about looking after themselves from the wartime. "By the hook' A couple of years later at boarding school in Wanganui, there was a relieving teacher in the geography class. She had a habit of dictating work which Basil thought was a real nuisance but that day she was talking about volcanoes in New Zealand.

She listed Ruapehu as being an extinct volcano. Basil and his friend (who was also from Raetihi) strongly objected to this and a hot debate began. She argued — "but it say s so in the book", with Basil' s reply being " no, we' ve seen it blowing up". It was obvious who the winner here was. For today's eruptions Basil thinks the chances of a major eruption are remote but if the big one happened, he'd think twice about staying around.