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Eruption and Destruction

When: 10 June 1886
Where: Mount Tarawera, near Rotorua
Part of: Event of 1886: The Mount Tarawera volcano erupts in New Zealand, resulting in the deaths of ove

Mount Tarawera erupted violently in the early hours of 10 June 1886, killing an estimated 120 people and destroying the Pink and White Terraces.

The eruption reached a VEI of 5, the largest and deadliest in New Zealand during the past 500 years. It distributed wet ash and lapilli over 10,000 square kilometres, destroying villages near the mountain. The event is responsible for the presumed destruction of the famed Pink and White Terraces, previously New Zealand's most famous tourist attraction.

Sources

1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.