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Eastern Ruapehu Lahar Alarm And Warning System
The Eastern Ruapehu Lahar Alarm and Warning System (ERLAWS) is a lahar warning system that was installed on Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand following volcanic eruptions in 1995–1996. The system successfully detected and warned of an imminent lahar in March 2007. The system is being expanded to detect the wider range of lahar threats now expected on Ruapehu. Introduction The 1995–1996 eruptions of Ruapehu in the North Island of New Zealand left a 7-metre high dam of tephra, consisting of volcanic ash and rock, around the rim of the crater lake. It was realised that as the lake refilled and rose above the level of its normal outlet, the tephra dam would eventually collapse, causing a large lahar. Such a lahar resulted in the 1953 Tangiwai disaster when 151 people died as the lahar swept a railway bridge away, causing a passenger train to plunge into the Whangaehu River. In 2000 the government decided to plan, design and implement ERLAWS – a complex system of sensors and preven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Ruapehu may refer to: * Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano, the highest mountain in the North Island of New Zealand * Ruapehu District, the local government area that covers much land generally west and south of Mount Ruapehu, mostly in the headwaters of the Whanganui River * SS ''Ruapehu'', a 340-passenger steam ship, built in 1901 and wrecked in 1930. Its main route was London to Auckland and Wellington and back; took the New Zealand Tunnelling Company The New Zealand Tunnelling Company (also ''New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company'') was a tunnel warfare unit of the Royal New Zealand Engineers during World War I which specialised in sapping and mining. The tunnelling companies were occupied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genesis Energy Limited
Genesis Energy Limited, formerly Genesis Power Limited is a New Zealand publicly listed electricity generation and electricity, natural gas and LPG retailing company. It was formed as part of the 1998–99 reform of the New Zealand electricity sector, taking its generation capacity from the breakup of the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) and taking retail customers from three local power boards in the Lower North Island. The New Zealand Government owns a 51% share of the company. Genesis Energy is the largest electricity and natural gas retailer in New Zealand with 26% and 39% market share respectively in the 2015–2016 financial year. In 2015, Genesis produced 14% of New Zealand's electricity, and is the third largest electricity generating company in New Zealand in terms of MW capacity, GWh generation and revenue (see comparison table at New Zealand electricity market). History Genesis Energy began business on 1 April 1999, after the reform of the N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flash Flooding
A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields. Flash floods may also occur after the collapse of a natural ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam, as occurred before the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by having a timescale of fewer than six hours between rainfall and the onset of flooding. Flash floods are a significant hazard, causing more fatalities in the U.S. in an average year than lightning, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Flash floods can also deposit large quantities of sediments on floodplains and can be destructive of vegetation cover not adapted to frequent flood conditions. Causes Flash floods most often occur in dry areas that have recently received precipitation, but they may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Highway
A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a state or province falls below numbered national highways (Canada being a notable exception to this rule) in the hierarchy (route numbers are used to aid navigation, and may or may not indicate ownership or maintenance). Roads maintained by a state or province include both nationally numbered highways and un-numbered state highways. Depending on the state, "state highway" may be used for one meaning and "state road" or "state route" for the other. In some countries such as New Zealand, the word "state" is used in its sense of a sovereign state or country. By this meaning a state highway is a road maintained and numbered by the national government rather than local authorities. Countries Australia Australia's State Route system covers u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangiwai
Tangiwai is a census area and a small rural community in the Ruapehu District of the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand's North Island. It is located east of Ohakune and Rangataua and west of Waiouru on State Highway 49. In 2018 37.5% of the area's 1,281 residents worked in agriculture, forestry and fishing and 7.1% in manufacturing. The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "weeping water" for . New Zealand's worst rail accident, the Tangiwai disaster, occurred near Tangiwai on 24 December 1953. The Whangaehu River rail bridge collapsed beneath a Wellington-to-Auckland express passenger train. The locomotive and 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 large lahar in the Whangaehu River, which destroyed one of the bridge piers at Tangiwai only minutes before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
KiwiRail
KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail transport operator in New Zealand. KiwiRail has business units of KiwiRail Freight, Great Journeys New Zealand and Interislander. KiwiRail released a 10-Year Turn-around Plan in 2010 and has received significant government investment in support of this in an effort to make KiwiRail a viable long-term transport operator. History Background Prior to the establishment of KiwiRail, rail transport in New Zealand has been under both public and private ownership. Government operators included the Public Works Department (1873–1880), New Zealand Railways Department (1880–1982), and the New Zealand Railways Corporation (1982–1990). New Zealand Rail Limited was split off from the Railways Corporation (which continued to own the land beneath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transit New Zealand
Transit New Zealand (Māori: Ararau Aotearoa), which existed from 1989 to 2008, was the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for operating and planning the New Zealand state highway network (10,894 km, about 12% of New Zealand's roads). It also concerned itself with developments close to state highways, as it considered the potential additional traffic that these would create, and it was responsible for state highway landscaping. Transit New Zealand was merged with Land Transport New Zealand to form the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) on 1 August 2008. Transit's website was still active up to 9 December 2009, when the new NZTA website was launched with streamlined information from the Transit website. Structure Transit had an annual operating budget of over NZ$1 billion and about 450 staff, with much of its actual planning and design work contracted out to construction companies and consultancies. Almost all of its funding was approved by the government's land transport funding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pagers
A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to and originate messages using an internal transmitter. Pagers operate as part of a paging system which includes one or more fixed transmitters (or in the case of response pagers and two-way pagers, one or more base stations), as well as a number of pagers carried by mobile users. These systems can range from a restaurant system with a single low power transmitter, to a nationwide system with thousands of high-power base stations. Pagers were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, and became widely used by the 1980s. In the 21st century, the widespread availability of cellphones and smartphones has greatly diminished the pager industry. Nevertheless, pagers continue to be used by some emergency services and public safety personne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokaanu
Tokaanu is a small settlement close to Tūrangi at the southern end of Lake Taupō. The Tokaanu Thermal Pools and the easy access to Lake Taupo make it a popular lakeside holiday destination. A short walking track through the Tokaanu thermal area leads past steaming hot mineral pools and small mud pools dotted amongst the native bush. To the east of Tokaanu, another short walking track leads up the 490 m high Manganamu, an extinct lava dome. Before the development of Tūrangi in the 1960s, Tokaanu was the main settlement at the southern end of Lake Taupo. It had been known to Māori for centuries for its natural thermal pools. The pools became a major stopover on the Grand Tour stage coach run from Wanganui to Taupō in the 1800s. Passengers arrived by stage coach from Waiouru, and departed by steam launch from the historic Tokaanu wharf onwards to Taupo. The Tokaanu Power Station, the largest hydro dam in the Tongariro power scheme, was built in the area in the 1960s. The loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whangaehu River
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 Whanganui. Water is diverted from the headwaters for the Tongariro Power Scheme. Length The river flows for southward to the South Taranaki Bight near the settlement of Whangaehu. Notoriety The sudden collapse of part of the Ruapehu crater wall on 24 December 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. Timeline * 13 December 1859: The bridge was washed away. * In February 1862 J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lahar
A lahar (, from jv, ꦮ꧀ꦭꦲꦂ) is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. Lahars are extremely destructive: they can flow tens of metres per second, they have been known to be up to deep, and large flows tend to destroy any structures in their path. Notable lahars include those at Mount Pinatubo and Nevado del Ruiz, the latter of which killed thousands of people in the town of Armero. Etymology The word ''lahar'' is of Javanese origin. Berend George Escher introduced it as a geological term in 1922. Description The word ''lahar'' is a general term for a flowing mixture of water and pyroclastic debris. It does not refer to a particular rheology or sediment concentration. Lahars can occur as normal stream flows (sediment concentration of less than 30%), hyper-concentrated stream flows (sediment concentration between 30 and 60% ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangiwai Disaster
The Tangiwai disaster 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 otherwise erupting at the time. The disaster remains New Zealand's worst rail accident. Bridge collapse On 24 December 1953, the 3 p.m. express train from Wellington to Auckland consisted of a KA class steam locomotive hauling eleven carriages: five second class, four first-class, a guard's van and a postal van. With 285 passengers and crew, the train was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
