Hope you are not visiting the Ruapehu area today, Mother Bear! :107:


Lahar passes Tangiwai, makes way to sea

Updated 3:00PM Sunday March 18, 2007

A moderate lahar, or mudflow, from Mt Ruapehu's crater lake has gone past the village of Tangiwai and is now on its way to the sea.

Ruapehu District Council spokesman Paul Wheatcroft told NZPA today the lahar had not caused any infrastructural damage which they knew of and was losing strength the further it went.

The lahar was following the route of the Whangaehu River and had passed the Marae Bridge and was now following the river's path through farmland, he said. "It will go all the way to the sea, near Wanganui, but it will be negligible how much of it will be left by then."

The lahar had followed the river's path which ran parallel to the Desert Road but had not crossed the road, he said. The river's water levels were much higher because of the lahar but were contained, he said.

The lahar broke through a rubble wall atop the mountain's crater lake about 10.47 am today, triggering an alarm, Horizon Regional Council said.

Conservation Department senior officer Dave Wakelin said it was a "moderate lahar" with no settlements in the immediate path of the flow.

Police and Civil Defence workers immediately closed roads round the southern base of the mountain including the North Island's main north-south State Highway 1 .

A lahar that tore down the same volcano in 1953 killed 151 people when it washed away a rail bridge, plunging a passenger train into the raging torrent of liquid mud.

(more on http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/...ectid=10429432)