The lahar hits Strachan's Bridge. Photo / Wanganui Chronicle
The lahar hits Strachan's Bridge. Photo / Wanganui Chronicle
KEY POINTS:
Ruapehu farmer Dana Blackburn was relieved last night that a partial road washout and debris-covered bridge near his house was the only damage inflicted by yesterday's lahar.
Mr Blackburn, whose father-in-law, Ian Strachan, was on the farm near Tangiwai when a lahar killed 151 train passengers upstream fromhim in 1953, said he was warned about the lahar and able to watch it.
"I saw the tail end of the lahar in 1995, but with this one the water was a lot higher and a lot more volatile."
A bridge on the road near Mr Blackburn's house came under huge pressure as the lahar passed yesterday, but appeared to have withstood the force.
"It took a battering, but it's still there. It came right over the top. The deck is covered in silt a good two feet thick and the railings either side are full of ... debris."
Council engineers were to check the bridge today for structural damage while the debris was cleared.
Mr Blackburn said the road leading to the bridge was partially washed out, but as far as he knew it was one of the few reports of damage in the area.
He said emergency response teams had reacted well and he was warned at 10.50am that the banks of the Mt Ruapehu Crater Lake may have been breached.
"We were contacted again half an hour later to confirm that [the lahar] was happening."
Mr Blackburn said apart from personal phone calls about the lahar, his family had been provided with a pager, which had activated.
Mr Strachan, who now lives in Wanganui, said he was on the farm when the Tangiwai disaster struck in 1953 and that it was an event he had relived enough and didn't want to do so again.
He said he attended the disaster's 50-year memorial and was pleased to hear a monument erected on the river then had survived the latest incident.
