On 10 June 1886, the people of Te Wairoa, situated close to Rotorua, experienced one of the worst natural disasters in New Zealand history. They awoke to Wāhanga, Ruawāhia, and Tarawera mountains splitting apart, spewing forth millions of tonnes of ash and debris. Earthquakes were felt throughout the North Island, and Auckland residents mistook the noise for cannon fire.
Physical and spiritual warnings prior to the eruption had been reported. While ferrying tourists across Lake Tarawera to the Pink and White Terraces in 1886, the famous guide Sophia Hinerangi saw a mysterious phantom canoe; and Lake Rotomahana water levels rose and fell dramatically. The high priest Tūhoto Ariki of the Tūhourangi tribe interpreted this as a warning. He feared the terraces were being exploited as a tourist attraction without due regard to ancestral values.
There were huge losses to land and human life. Lake Rotomahana, the world renowned natural Pink and White Terraces, and over 150 residents of the villages of Te Ariki and Moura were buried. Protected by a valley, most of the residents of Te Wairoa survived even though their village was covered in volcanic debris. The old high priest Tūhoto Ariki also survived, dug from his buried house four days after the eruption.
The neighbouring people of Te Arawa provided shelter, clothing and food for the survivors. Because the government acquired the devastated area soon after the eruption, the people of Tūhourangi could not return to their Tarawera homeland when it recovered in the early 1900s.
Lake Rotomahana gradually refilled the crater blasted apart by the eruption, and grew to four times its original length, with a water level 30 metres higher than before. Te Wairoa village is now known as the Buried Village and has been excavated to show where people lived and died. The area is ringed in poplar trees that have grown from the fence posts buried in the eruption. The craters of Mt Tarawera at Rotomahana and Waimangu are still active today.
