Skip to main content

Kōrero: Historic volcanic activity

Tarawera erupting, 1886

Mountain erupting with fire and smoke behind lake and people fleeing in the foreground

This lithograph of Mt Tarawera erupting on the night of 10 June 1886 was made by A. D. Willis, based on a painting by Charles Blomfield. The view is from the Māori village of Waitangi, on the northern shores of Lake Tarawera, where there was only a single death. Blomfield did not see the eruption, and reconstructed the dramatic scene from what he had been told.

In Te Wairoa, a few kilometres closer to the volcano, Charles Haszard observed the eruption from his verandah and had exclaimed, ‘What a grand sight! Should we live a hundred years we shall never again see its equal.’ He died a few hours later when his house collapsed.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: C-033-002

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Eileen McSaveney, Carol Stewart rāua ko Graham Leonard, Historic volcanic activity – Tarawera, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/artwork/6841/tarawera-erupting-1886 (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Eileen McSaveney, Carol Stewart rāua ko Graham Leonard, i tāngia i te 2 March 2009.

Comments

-
25 June 2014
charles haszard, now thats true irony!
-
28 August 2013
wow
Peter Spencer
11 March 2013
The day before the Tarawera eruption of 10th June 1886, one of my great aunts was visiting one of her sisters at their house in the Bay of Plenty. When it came time to leave that afternoon, they were already up in their wagon when the sister who was staying said, 'look at that black sky up ahead, where you're going--you'll be on the road, and get soaked. Stay another night and leave in the morning.' So they stayed, and early next morning Tarawera went off with a bang that woke them all up, and kept them awake for hours. The house got so much ash on the roof that it started to sag, so the linked arms and made their way across the the hen-house, and stayed there for the duration of the event.