TARAWERA ERUPTION

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 73, 10 June 1953, Page 1

TARAWERA ERUPTION

SIXTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY LATE W. H. BIRD'S STORY

(By

R. H.

W.)

Today is the sixty-seventh anniversary of Tarawera eruption, the greatest volcanie outburst in historic times in New Z, ea land. Half an hour after midnight on the morning of Friday, June 10th. 1886 earthquakes commenced, weak at fiirst, recurring frequently aird aeeompanied by rumbling. At 1.30 a.m. Wahanga, part of Tarawera. mountain, erupted with a vivid flash, followed by an explosion. At 2 p.m. Ruawahia bi.irst into eruption aeeompanied by a loud roair. By 2.30 a.m. the whole mountain top was in aetion, and an enormous black mushroom mountain top was in etaoi mushroom eloud was giving a brilliant electrical display, & white & red-hot rocks wetre being hurled high in the .air. By 3.30 a.m. craters along a fis~ sure extending nine miles from Tarawera through Rotomahana were in full eruption. By 5.30 a.m. the was about over. The eruption on Tarawera itself lasted scarcely twentyfour hours, but Rotomahana poured out immense quantities of rteam for seveval weeks, as also did gome of the western eruters. Events at Buried Village. Some twentv-two years ago the late Mr William H. Bird, Sen., who was well-known in the Taupo Country, gave the writer the following aeeount of his expeirienees at the village of Te Wairoa on the night of the eruption. The following vivid story is in Mr Bird's own words:— * "My wife and I, with out child, were suddenly disturbed by an earthquake between one and two o'clock in th# morning of Friday , June 10th. Another followed ad then things toegan to fall from the shelves. Hurriedly we dressed and by then movement had become one continual shaking* Leaving my house I took wife and child to Guid.e Sophia's whare, and just them was joined by my brother John and Jack Falloona, We had speken but a few words when the great explosion occurred. The ground roeked and heaved so that we could staml only with difficulty. From Tarawera mountain a great black eloud ru&hed upward with terrifie speed, spreading out like a giant fan. It seemed to ihave streaks of lightning running through it, an appalling sight.

Fall of Mud. j "'The tliree of us waiked to the cliff , overlooking Tarawera Lake. From . there ,the nfountain had the appear- j ance of one huge fire, and the lake j below gleamed like a great red mir- ! ror. Great balls of fire were being shof out of the mountain, some reachthe western short of ihe Lake, but the majority falling into the water. About this timo, I think, w(e began to "get the wind up," and started hack ■ to join the others. To do so we had j to hang on to each other. Arrived j at McEae's Hotel we found that Mc- 1 Rae a^nd the others had be.en up to the ' old Mission Station at Te Mu, and had: also had a good view of the mountain. We all went into the j hotel then, as the mud was staiting j to fall, and it was not lohg befor.e it j was eoiping down in flms. We sat in the old smoking room, listening to the awful unceasing roar, while earthquakes were continuous, and sulphurous fumes filled the air. After perhaps an hour, during vvhich the roof had fallen in, the joists of the ceiling above our heads began to bend ominously. Young Edwin Bainbridge (a toim'ist visitor, a couslng of Her 'Excelleney, Lady Norrie.-Ed.) suggested that we should join in praver, and, all assenting, he olfered up a prayer in which we all joined devoutly* Later w^e shifted into a tiining room that McRae had built that sum-

mer, but now we had to sit in dai'kness as the door was burot in and we coukl not keep a light burning. By this time I think everybody was resigned and that none expeeted to come through alive. We strurk matches occasioiially to watch the threatened ceiling and eventually the bending of the joists impelled us to take our chances outside. A Heaven-sent Sight. "I do not know when young Bainbridge went out, but he must have been killed when ihe balcony eollapse l . ,for his body was found vtnder it after- ■ wards. Jack Falloona, my brother 'and I got together and McRae and | • somebody else got the two givls (Miss Keari and Miss Bridan) and orf we started. Once on the road we saw a heaveh-sent sight, a little light in a swindow about a hundred yards away. ; We made the nearest approach to a jbee-line that the conditions permitted. It was Sophia's whare, packed with refugees, and T found my wife and child still there. We stayed in Sophiays whare until daylight appeared about eight o'cl-ock, by when the stuff had pfactically ceased coming down. We went up to the ruined schoolhouse and found Clara and Ina Hazard, and the two surveyors, Blythe and Lundius, safe. We could not locate Mrs Hazard but she „ was later I rescued alive from the iruins. Eventually all the survivors, except some of the oldest Maoris, started to walk | (Continued on Page 5)

TARAWERA ERUPTION

(Continued from Page 1.) to Rotorua, or irather to Ohinemutu. Though the Tikitapu hush a welcome sight appeared, "Teddy" Robertson and old Ned Douglas with two coaehes. Putting the women and children aboard, some of us returned to Te Wairoa to hunt for the missing. Mrs Hazard was found alive, a little daughter dead alongside her and a little son dead on her lap. I remember the great objection made by the old tohunga, Tuhotu, to being taken to Rotorua when he was dug* out. It was eommonly believed that it was not his age, noa* his terrible experience, that caused his death. He was given a bath and this "broke him up" so that he promptly died. So in a few hours the countryside became a grey waste, the happy Tuhounrangi tribe was ibrokeri and seattered arai New Zealand's finest scenic asset, the Pink and White Terraces, destrbyed."