STORY OF TARAWERA

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 421, 30 April 1937, Page 7

STORY OF TARAWERA

ERUPTION DISASTER OF 1886 The Famous Terraces Memories of the eruption at Tarawera on June 10, 1886, were recall.d in an address, by the Bishop of Aotcaroa, Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, to the Napier Ro 'ary Club. Bishop Benn.tt, who was born and educated in the district, dold his story partly from his own observations and partly from the records he had collected from actual eyewitnesses and residents of the district, says an exchange. At the of the erup'ion, Bishop Bennett was in Nelson, and a boyhood friend at Te Wairoa, Adolphus Hazzard, son of the s choolmas er, had written and despatched a letter to him a few hours before the disaster. The let er was given to a surveyor in the district to post. The man, Mr Sundius, arrived safely through th? disaster, and s-till resides in Wellington. The sole reference to atmospheric conditions in the 1. tter was that the night was a bois erous one, and in conversion wi.h. natives in the district afterward, the Bishop has confit med this statement. The wind was a southerly, causing many of the hat pooh to dry up, as was usual in a southerly wind. At such times the water ceased to run over the famous white and pink terrace-s and resumed once more when the wind changed. The writer of the letter, his father and two sisters' were all killed in the eruption. His mo'her was pinned beaeath a beam from their falling house, but recovered after treatment in the Sanatorium at Rotorua. Lived on Tourists. “The life of the Maori people in the dis rict was similar to that of others living in the thermal area,” continued the Bishop. “They lived on the tourist trade. They were-well-ito-do, wellpaid, and as the result is when people earn uoo much money, they began to squander it and lead anything but an ideal life. Things were debased and demoralis’d with a certain section of he people. “I tell of ths because it loads up to what was felt strongly by the people themselves. Something had to- be done to get them out of this terrible groove, and many of the people felt ihat" something more than a human being could do had to happen to bring them back to their proper boatings. ‘‘Tarawera means ‘the burning peak,’ but there was no record among the people of the district that it had ever been a volcano before. The fact that they gave it Hie name Tarawera however, shows that there jSKist have been some volcanic activity there in earlier days' of the Maori occupation of 'the Dominion.” j The speaker stated that it.was imi possible to describe the beauty of the . ferriages l , % by day or by moonlight. | Words could not be found to express I the majesty, grandeur dignity of I ’he rock formations that had been | called one of the wonders of 'the i modern world.. It had often been mooted t’> at they might be 'discovered again, but from his own experience ihe speaker considered 'that they had been blown asunder. There wa s no trace of them anywhere, and at their former site was a great excavation, now part of the lake itself. “Russian Invasion” Scare. The eruption scattered dust and sediment over an area of 5,000 square mills. In Nelson, where the Bishop wa s 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” i scare, it was felt by many people-, that the noise wa s 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 wi h no boots and very little other clothing, and the ordeals of those who refnaine-d during ths first night of the eruption were terrible. One Maori, who was one of many who had taken refuge in the house of Guide Sophia, performed valiant feats in supportng the sagging roof with boxes, and by using his bare hands to brush from the roof the rddhot lava and scaldng mud which threatened to engulf those in shelter below. One old man was buried in a hut and managed to live for three days 1 , before a stick which he pulled up and down through the mud above him attracted the attention of rescurers. An old tohunga, who had steadfastly refused to wear pakeha clothing, was believed by some to have caused the eruption by incantations as utu or revenge for an insult to him by a member of the tribe. He was finally rescued from hi s hut, but the subsequent washing and haircut he received were too much for lim. and he died. n .conversation with other survivors*/

who had also experienced the 1931 earthquake' in Hawke's Bay, .the speaker had received the information that the shock itself in the eruption was not so great as that in 1931. At the conclusion of the address, a vote of thanks was proposed Bishop Benne t by Rotarian W. Harvey, who recalled seeing the ship Southern Cross, which had been in tlie Bay of Plenty at the time of the eruption, ccme into Napier with the ashes of the eruption s'.ill upon her deck.