September 1995, indicating the crater lake was being emptied by the eruptions. The Department of Conservationimmediately issued hazard warnings and advised people to keep off the mountain, thus ending the ski season. The eruption cloud disrupted air travel, occasionally closing airports and the central North Island airspace.Black sand like ash fell on surrounding farmland and stock had to be moved. The ash also entered streams and was washed into the penstocks and turbines of the Rangipo underground HEP station causing rapid corrosion on the turbine blades which had to be rebuilt. Episodic eruptions continued until the end of November 1995.
Within hours of a major eruption during the night being reported on 25 September 1995, news media were trying to get live video of the eruption and amateur photographers had published eruption images on the World Wide Web. A webcamera, dubbed the world's first "VolcanoCam", was set up. Since then Ruapehu has been monitored by at least one and sometimes several volcanocams.
Another, smaller, eruption phase began on the morning of 17 June 1996. Despite a series of small eruptions that spread thin layers of ash across both Whakapapa and Turoa ski areas, the ski fields opened for the 1996 season. Turoa closed on 29 September � earlier than usual, while Whakapapa stayed open until Labour Weekend.
After the 1996 eruption it was recognised that a catastrophic lahar could again occur when the crater lake burst the volcanic ash dam blocking the lake outlet. This is the same mechanism that caused the 1953 lahar. The lake gradually filled with snowmelt and had reached the level of the hard rock rim by January 2005. The lahar finally occurred on 18 March 2007 (see below).
2006 eruption
Ruapehu erupted at 10.30pm on 4 October 2006. The small eruption created a volcanic earthquake of magnitude 2.8, sending a water plume 200 m into the air and 6-m waves crashing into the wall of the crater
