OA popular place to visit today is the Buried Village which has Whare's (houses) still buried in ash. The eruption also destroyed the Pink and White Terraces - two beautiful silica terraces on the side of Tarawera which were a huge worldwide attraction in a time when Yellowstone National Park in the USA had not yet begun to attract popular attention.

Tarawera is a part of the Okataina Volcanic Center - a wider area which lies to the east of Lake Rotorua. This area has been the site of 5 or 6 huge eruptions between 400,000 and 50,000 years ago. Like Taupo, these eruptions caused the surrounding ground to collapse causing a basin known as a caldera. These massive eruptions buried large area's under 50m - 100m of pumice that was hot enough to weld together forming ignimbrite, which looks like concrete.