'Gunfire' noises a feature of '45 eruption

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 609, 24 October 1995, Page 4

'Gunfire' noises a feature of '45 eruption

Ru/\pehuS>5 To mark "Ruapehu '95" — the commemoration of the 1 945 eruption of the mountain, Ruapehu College pupils have prepared a series of articles based around interviews of witnesses of the 1945 eruption.

By

Alison

Munn

When local mechanic and fire chief Max Martin was asked around four months ago what the local people would do to commemorate the 1945 eruptions of the mountain he joked that we'll probably put on another eruption. Little did he know that his joke would very soon come true when two hours after this interview took place the mountain blew. As we stood outside his Burns Street workshop looking at the mountain and the ash that had just come down on one of the peaks he talked about eruptions 50 years ago and how that the little puffs coming out were nothing like the black clouds and the violent explosions that sounded like heavy gun fire that plagued the mountain for months before it finally blew. Max still vividly remembers the day when it blew. Max's mother had got up early for some reason just as a black plume emerged from the peaks of Ruapehu. This was the beginning of the eruptions on the mountain. Max, who at the time was a school boy, remembers the ash that came down being a grey-Khaki colour and that visibility on Miro Hill was about 30 metres. At the time Max and his family had a house in Tanui street and the views of the erupting mountain were spectacular. Though there was the possibility of ash getting into the water supplies, at the time Ohakune was on tank water, no one worried and just disconnected the tanks and waited for the rain to come and wash the ash off the roofs. No one got sick because of the eruptions and no one even thought about moving away from the area. He described the puffs that occasionally emerged from the peaks as something minor, like 1975 but that was when it looked like nothing major would happen and before the 5.00pm eruption, Saturday 23 September, that launched Ruapehu to world wide fame.