On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1953, an express passenger train in New Zealand was crossing the Whangaehu River when a volcanic lahar — a fast mudflow triggered by the collapse of a crater lake wall on Mount Ruapehu — destroyed the bridge supports just moments before the train arrived. The locomotive and carriages plunged into the river’s torrent. Of approximately 285 people aboard, 151 died, many returning to homes and families for the holidays. The disaster remains one of New Zealand’s deadlie