The Tangiwai train disaster was a deadly railway accident that occurred at 10:21 p.m. on 24 December 1953, when a railway bridge over the Whangaehu River collapsed beneath an express passenger train at Tangiwai, North Island, New Zealand. The locomotive and the first six carriages derailed into the river, killing 151 people. The subsequent board of inquiry found that the accident was caused by the collapse of the tephra dam holding back nearby Mount Ruapehu's crater lake, creating a rapid mudflow (lahar) in the Whangaehu River, which destroyed one of the bridge piers at Tangiwai only minutes before the train reached the bridge. The volcano itself was not erupting at the time. The disaster remains New Zealand's worst rail accident.
The wreckage of the KA locomotive, the sixth carriage and the rail bridge, in the Whangaehu River at Tangiwai, 25 December 1953.
The destroyed bridge after the disaster
Front page of the Auckland Star newspaper of 26 December
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Karori Cemetery, 31 December 1953
Mount Ruapehu is an active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Taupō Volcanic Zone and North Island volcanic plateau in New Zealand. It is 23 km (14 mi) northeast of Ohakune and 23 km (14 mi) southwest of the southern shore of Lake Taupō, within the Tongariro National Park. The North Island's major ski resorts and only glaciers are on its slopes.
Mt Ruapehu from Tongariro Northern Circuit, 2023
Mount Ruapehu, January 2002.
A composite satellite image looking west across Ruapehu, with the older eroded volcano Hauhungatahi visible behind it, and the cone of Ngauruhoe visible to the right.
Crater Lake and Tahurangi, the highest peak (top right) in 2016. The 1996 tephra dam is the bluish dark area at lake edge directly below Tahurangi.