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The Tarawera Eruption 1886
10 days before the eruption, some european tuorists and a few maoris were out canoeing on the Tarawera Lake. Someone spotted a maori war canoe in the distance with some maori warriors in it. The Europeans thought this was a real canoe, but the maoris knew what it really was. It was the ghost canoe (or the canoe of death) and it dissapeared half a mile to their tourist boat. An old man believed that seeing this ghost canoe ment alot of people were going to die, or some disastrous occurrence would take place shortly.
Ten days later (the 10th of June) Early in the morning, the people of the village were woken up by violent shaking, rumbling and bright flashes out side. The mountain split open and molten rocks flew out of the gap and fell into the lake. Mud and ash also came out, The mud buried the villages and the ash suffocated people. The local school teacher and five others in his family were all buried in this mud but the rest of the people living in the house evacuated to the chicken house.
At around 6:00 am the eruption started to dye down but the village remained dark for about 2 hours from all the ash. People who were under shealter started to come out and found practically their whole village buried under the mud. All apart from 2 of the building s, were destroyed, one of the ones that survived was the whare of a Maori tourist guide called Sophia. Some men sent out for a search party who came and rescued some people and unburied them.The old man who had predicted a disaster, died shortly after being unburied.
A total of around 153 people died as a cause of this eruption. The villages were'nt very well prepared becuse most people had no idea this was going to happen apart from those who believed the old man.
The pink and white terraces were distroyed in this eruption. The pink and white terraces were one of the worlds wonders, a great tourist attraction. They were made of silica and they had been formed over thousands of years. People used to bathe in them because there was warm water down the bottem
