New Zealand's longest-running soap opera celebrated 25 years on our screens this evening by bringing back some favourite characters - but it was an erupting Mt Ferndale that played the starring role.
Earthquakes were the first sign that something wasn't right in Ferndale, but guests at Chris Warner's 50th birthday were determined not to let the tremors spoil the party.
Dr Sleaze - as he was dubbed in the pilot episode - is dying of leukaemia. It was touch and go whether the character, played by Michael Galvin, would make it to his birthday.
He got there in the end but the night was marred by tragedy when Mt Ferndale erupted, spreading a deadly cloud of ash and poisonous gas over Auckland.
As the injured and choking victims flooded in to Shortland Street Hospital, Lucy gave birth to her baby in a car half-buried in volcanic ash. Although the baby was healthy, the birth went badly and Lucy was bleeding out - the episode ended without divulging her fate, leaving many fearing the worst.
