ERUPTION RECALLED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21498, 23 May 1933, Page 10

ERUPTION RECALLED

THE TARAWERA OUTBREAK TWO BUILDINGS. UNEARTHED [BY TELEGRATH OWN CORRESPONDENT] ROTORUA, Monday Several interesting relics of the Tarawera eruption have been discovered during the past few days on a property recently acquired by Mr. R. Smith, in the Te Wairoa Valley, in the vicinity of the buried village. In the process of cleaning up a paddock which had become overgrown with tea-tree and scrub two buried buildings were discovered, one of which was thought to have been a store and tho other a small dwelling. Part of a chimney of one, fireplaces, embedded roofs and beams, and other debris were unearthed and a number of articles were found. Among these were some willow and pheasant-patterned plates, an old glazed teapot, crockery, ironware and a sword scabbard. A curious piece found was an old stone jug with a group figure design in relief, and an old Chinese teapot was among the relics. Although theso articles had been buric-d for nearly 50 years, they were mostly in a good state of preservation. The finding of these relics recalls the terrible catastrophe that occurred in 1886, when tho beautiful and fcrtilo valley and the village of Te Wairoa were overwhelmed and destroyed by tho eruption of Tarawera, and the countryside was laid waste by tho volcanic mud, which covered the area to a depth of more than 2ft., of the heroism" displayed, and the miraculous escapes and tho great loss of life that occurred through the disaster. There remains evidence of the episode at tKe buried village, there being a small portion of Guide Sophia's wl.aro still standing and the debris of tho Terrace and Mcßao's Hotels, a chimney and fireplace of tho old Mission House intact, and other objects—records of tho awful disaster and th® loss of the famous Pink and White Terraces, the prido of the thermal regions, which are supposed to bo deep under Lake liotomahana.