The eruption of Mount Tarawera initially destroyed Lake Rotomakariri and its lakeside village with the loss of 19 lives, though water entering the new crater gradually refilled Lake Rotomakariri after volcanic activity subsided.

[3] This is in contrast to the larger warm lake Rotomahana just to its west on whose shores were the famous Pink and White Terraces that like all these features were destroyed or buried in the 1886 eruption.

[4] High quality pictures of the then Lake Rotomahana and associated tourist attractions were widely available in Europe by 1875.

[9] Pictures of this new and temporary Lake Rotomakariri in a rather desolate landscape of the fresh eruptives exist.

[10][11] In due course Lake Rotomahana expanded again to ten times its previous area to occupy much of a crater produced by the 1886 eruption.

[18] However one interpretation of Hochstetter's original 1859 map's coordinates used to conjecture that some of the White Terrace might be buried rather than destroyed, would have put some of the old Lake Rotmakariri covered under a built up new Rotomahana crater rim today.

[19] Such an interpretation does not fit that well with the geological processes assumed to have occurred that erupted lake type mud deposits.