New Zealand Disasters: Te Puia o Whakaari (White Island) Landslide (10 September 1914)

• Te Puia o Whakaari - The full Māori name for the island is 'Te Puia o Whakaari' meaning literally, 'The Dramatic Volcano'.
• White Island - On 1 November 1769 Captain Cook named it White Island 'because as such it always appear'd to us'.

Whakaari is an active marine volcano, part of the 'Ring of Fire' (a ring of volcanoes around the Pacific Ocean). The island has a "respectable-sized" eruption roughly every 2-10 years.

The White Island Sulphur Company Ltd had ten workers mining sulphur on the island in 1914. On 9 September 1914 they were joined by Arthur James Brennan and David Malcolm McMurtrie who arrived via Auckland and Opotiki.

The following day, on 10 September 1914, Whakaari's south-western crater rim collapsed, causing a lahar (volcanic mudflow) to rush through the crater floor, smashing the workers' huts, the manager's house and other mine buildings and shunting them into the sea. It is believed that the debris from the landslide blocked the blowhole and caused an eruption.

One of five camp cats, 'Peter the Great', was the only survivor, discovered hungry but uninjured three weeks later. The bodies of the twelve men and other camp cats were never found. No memorial or compensation was provided for their grieving families and the men were never officially recorded as having died. Five of the men had twelve children left fatherless, including one child born a few months after the tragedy.

‘DISASTER AT WHITE ISLAND. PLANT AND MEN OVERWHELMED.’ This headline appeared in the Bay of Plenty Times of 21 September 1914. In the weeks after the disaster, wreckage from the plant was washed up on Tauranga beaches, but no trace of the men was ever found. The only survivor was ‘Peter the Great’, one of five camp cats. He recovered from his ordeal to live to a ripe old age in Opotiki and is said to have fathered many kittens in the town. Source: White Island: A place of hope and despair by Stephanie Smith http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/tauranga_local_history/topics/show/1149

See also: https://www.facebook.com/aeriushelicopters/posts/105-years-ago-rest...

The 12 [11?] killed:

1. A. Anderson, ?
2. Arthur James Brennan, 34
3. John Byrne, 49
4. Robert Henry Chappell (aka Robert Walker), 37
5. William Joseph Donovan, 31
6. L Kelly, 33
7. Robert Lamb, 36
8. Archibald James Campbell McKim, 34
9. David Malcolm McMurtrie, 23
10. R Waring, ?
11. Harry Edward Williams, 31
12. Stephen Henry Young, 27