Post by Roderick on Aug 27, 2008 23:33:47 GMT 12
Crater lake on the top of Mount Ruapehu...middle foreground of the lake is where the Lahar broke through and flowed down the mountain...same as it did in 1953(Christmas eve) , and washed the Tangiwai bridge away...causing the overnight Limited express train to crash ...150 or 250 deaths i think..?...Refer back a page(or 2) and there is apicture of the river and the wrecked train....Tangiwai disaster , 1953...a 21 year old guy called Joe Rhodes (hope i have the name right...i was very young)who lived in our street was on it ...and was never found.?(...nothing identifiable i think?)...cause the day was Christmas day , ..we sort of just sat around all day with people being very sad and listening to the radio , reading out lists of names of those dead and missing...Queen Elizabeth was in NZ on her coronation tour...was a very sad time
Christmas day, 1953 at Tangiwai
Tangiwai railway
Historic Events 24 December 1953
Tangiwai railway disaster
At 10.21 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1953 the Wellington–Auckland night express plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River at Tangiwai, 10 kilometres west of Waiouru in the central North Island. Of the 285 passengers on board, 151 died in New Zealand's worst railway accident. It was, at the time, the world’s eighth-biggest rail disaster and made headlines around the globe. The nation was stunned. With New Zealand’s population at just over two million, many people had a direct relationship with someone involved in the tragedy.
The place name Tangiwai means ‘weeping waters’ in Maori. The timing of the accident added to the sense of tragedy. Most of those on the train were heading home for Christmas, armed with presents for friends and family. Over the following days, searchers found many battered, mud-soaked presents, toys and teddy bears on the banks of the Whangaehu River. Those waiting to meet their loved ones at the various stations up the line had no sense of the tragedy unfolding on the volcanic plateau.
Lahars on the mountain
Lahars are a recurring natural event associated with Mt Ruapehu. In the investigation that followed the 1953 tragedy, it was discovered that a lahar had substantially weakened the rail bridge at Tangiwai in 1925. Some amateur geologists had warned that the state of the crater wall was a reason for concern, but this was largely ignored by the authorities. In 1954 a board of inquiry assisted by James Healy, the superintending geologist at the Geological Survey, DSIR, concluded that no one was to blame for the disaster. Police evidence claimed no legal blame could be attached to any party, and there were no prosecutions.
As a result of the board’s findings, an early warning system was installed upstream on the Whangaehu River. As recently as March 2007 a moderate-sized lahar flowed down the Whangaehu River, but due to a sophisticated monitoring and alarm system this event caused little damage and no injuries.
