Flushing the volcano

NZ has a real active volcano located in the middle of the North Island. Well, active... about once every decade it does something. In 1995 the last real eruption took place, which formed a crater lake that slowly but surely started to fill up. The NZ authorities were afraid that the crater rim would collapse, which would invoke a lahar (a mud flow). If this would happen the road past the volcano had to be shut down over a length of 30 km (20 miles) to prevent anybody from being hurt.

A few policemen were assigned the task of closing the road when a lahar would take place. Question was: WHEN would it take place? They couldn't predict that accurately so they just started driving from the start of the track to the end of the track continuously. All day long they were driving to and fro, up and down, from one side to the other. And back again, too. In fact, you could call it a kind of a paid obsessive-compulsive neurosis. The policemen were not at all amused by the whole exercise, but what to do? Safety of the civilians above all, right?

However, all the waiting has come to an end now, because the lahar has taken place today. Finally!! Due to all precautions taken no one was hurt, and only minor damage was done. Good work! I just think that the policemen might need some post-stiffly bore-disorder-counselling now… ;-)

(photo by Thor Thordarson)