English: Front page of The Auckland Star dated 26 December 1953 reporting the Tangiwai disaster.
At 10.21 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1953 the Wellington–Auckland night express plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River at Tangiwai, 10 kilometres west of Waiouru in the central North Island. Of the 285 passengers and crew on board, 151 died in New Zealand's worst railway accident. It was, at the time, the world’s eighth-deadliest rail disaster and made headlines around the globe. With New Zealand’s population at just over two million, many people had a direct relationship with someone involved in the tragedy. The place name Tangiwai means ‘weeping waters’ in Maori. The timing of the accident added to the sense of tragedy. Most of those on the train were heading home for Christmas, armed with presents for friends and family. Those waiting to meet their loved ones at the various stations up the line had no sense of the tragedy unfolding on the volcanic plateau. Over the following days, searchers found many battered, mud-soaked presents, toys and teddy bears on the banks of the Whangaehu River.

The weather on Christmas Eve was fine and there had been little rain. There was no indication that the Whangaehu River would be in flood. A goods train had crossed the bridge around 7 p.m. and the river had appeared normal. What transformed this situation was the sudden release of approximately two million cubic metres of water from the crater lake of nearby Mt Ruapehu. This lahar produced a 6-metre-high wave of water, ice, mud and rocks, which surged, tsunami-like, down the Whangaehu River. Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m. it struck the concrete pylons of the Tangiwai railway bridge. Travelling at approximately 65 kilometres per hour, locomotive Ka 949 and its train of nine carriages and two vans reached the severely weakened bridge at 10.21 p.m. As the bridge buckled beneath its weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking all five second-class carriages with it. The force of the torrent destroyed four of these carriages with little chance of survival for those inside. The death toll of 151 consisted of 148 second-class passengers, 1 first-class passenger, the engine driver and fireman. Twenty of the bodies were never found and were presumed to have been carried 120 km (75 mi) downriver to the ocean. Among the dead was Nerissa Love, the fiancee of cricketer Bob Blair, who was playing in a Test Match in South Africa at the time. On going out to bat after his loss, he received a standing ovation.

The image presented here is of front cover of the Auckland Star from December 26 1953. The newspaper clipping is in a file of clippings on the Tangiwai rail accident.