When will Mount Ruapehu's crater lake give way?

[Glen Miyashiro]

Over in Aotearoa (New Zealand), volcanic Mount Ruapehu (http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/summary.aspx?id=42442) has a crater lake that's been filling up with rainwater and is due to overflow any year now. It's happened before -- in 1953, when the downstream flood wrecked a railroad bridge just before an oncoming train was to cross it. 151 people were killed as the train derailed and plunged into the floodwaters.

Ruapehu's crater lake (http://www.ew.govt.nz/enviroinfo/hazards/naturalhazards/volcano/ruapehu.htm) has a volume of 8 to 10 million cubic meters, and experts estimate (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10937) that about 1 million cubic meters would be released when the flood happens this time. (For comparison, the Kaloko Dam failure on Kauaʻi let out a flood of 1,400 acre-feet of water, which is about 1.7 million cubic meters.) The New Zealand government has done a study (http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/MultiPageDocumentTOC.aspx?id=41771) of the threat. Unlike on Kauaʻi, there are no houses downstream, so with luck no one will be hurt this time.

[kimo55]

I dunno when it will give way. but when it does, can we make it a tourist ride? call it extreme shootin da flume nature tour, or sumpin.

[joshuatree]

So is there a rail line that still runs by it? If not, why wait on when the flood will occur? Why not just blow the dam up and trigger the flood now? :p

[GeckoGeek]

From the link it looks like we've only got a couple of months to wait.

[Glen Miyashiro]

Thar she blows!

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11407

[kiwidiva]

Thank goodness the sensors worked - no one was hurt and there seems to have been little damage. What a great opportunity to study it though!

[kiwidiva]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/328426.jpg
ALL QUIET NOW: Mt Ruapheu this morning.

The volcano exploded last night, sending lahars down the northern and eastern sides of the mountain and injuring a climber.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4214809a10.html

[Te Poutiki a Tai]

Maori attribute the eruption to the mountain speaking her mind (Ruapehu is female) as she is sick of being desecrated by people skiing on top of her.

Mountains are "sacred" as they are the gravesites of chiefs mostly. When the NZ Government announced that they were going to build a tunnel through Maunga Taupiri the Waikato people had a fit and told the government go jump. Luckily, the government did not go through with its plan of destroying the mountain.

[sinjin]

Maori attribute the eruption to the mountain speaking her mind (Ruapehu is female) as she is sick of being desecrated by people skiing on top of her.

Mountains are "sacred" as they are the gravesites of chiefs mostly. When the NZ Government announced that they were going to build a tunnel through Maunga Taupiri the Waikato people had a fit and told the government go jump. Luckily, the government did not go through with its plan of destroying the mountain.So Maori people don't ski?

[Te Poutiki a Tai]

So Maori people don't ski?

They shouldn't be skiing...but I have met some that do.

They do it in ignorance of the wishes of the local Maori when they ski down the side of the mountain.

I have a friend who did some skiing down there and she did it in complete ignorance of how the local people felt. I wanted to say to her, why did you go skiing down on that mountain it's sacred?!

The reason they do ski - is the lack of knowledge of how to behave appropriately.

[sinjin]

They shouldn't be skiing...but I have met some that do.

They do it in ignorance of the wishes of the local Maori when they ski down the side of the mountain.

I have a friend who did some skiing down there and she did it in complete ignorance of how the local people felt. I wanted to say to her, why did you go skiing down on that mountain it's sacred?!

The reason they do ski - is the lack of knowledge of how to behave appropriately.Thank you for your response. I mean no disrespect but how exactly was it determined that skiing down a mountain constitutes a desecration? Is climbing that same mountain also? How about flying over it?

[Te Poutiki a Tai]

That mountain is a burial site. It's a cemetary. That is one of the reasons why people shouldn't be skiing down it.

This is what I said in my first post on this thread.

[sinjin]

That mountain is a burial site. It's a cemetery. That is one of the reasons why people shouldn't be skiing down it.

This is what I said in my first post on this thread.

Mountains are "sacred" as they are the gravesites of chiefs mostly.I took you to be speaking in general terms not necessarily referring to this particular mountain.

[Te Poutiki a Tai]

If a mountain isn't a gravesite, some other significance will have been attached to it.

At any rate, this issue of the Maunga Ruapehu being sacred isn't something that has appeared out of nowhere (which is what the first reaction is to anything).

I'll take a look at some 19th century Maori newspapers about Ruapehu.