Whangaehu River
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.
This article or section contains insufficiently sourced phrases. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. You may improve the article or discuss this issue on the talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since March 2007. |
The Whangaehu River is a large river in central North Island of New Zealand. Its headwaters are the crater lake of Mount Ruapehu on the central plateau, and it flows into the Tasman Sea eight kilometres southeast of Wanganui.
[edit] Length
The river flows for 135 kilometres southward to the South Taranaki Bight near the settlement of Whangaehu.
[edit] Notoriety
The sudden collapse of part of the Ruapehu crater wall on December 24, 1953 led to New Zealand's worst railway accident, the Tangiwai disaster. A lahar - a sudden surge of mud-laden water - swept down the river, significantly weakening the structure of a railway bridge at the small settlement of Tangiwai. The overnight express train between Wellington and Auckland passed over the bridge minutes later, causing it to collapse into the turbulent waters. Of the 285 people on the train, 151 were killed.
[edit] Geology
Often poisoned with toxic chemicals from the volcanic activity in and around Mount Ruapehu
 |
This Manawatu-Wanganui geography article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
