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Five people dead and eight missing after New Zealand volcanic eruption Five people dead and eight missing after New Zealand volcanic eruption
(32 minutes later)
Questions arise as to why tourists were on White Island after scientists noted volcanic activityQuestions arise as to why tourists were on White Island after scientists noted volcanic activity
Five people have died, eight people are missing and 31 remain in hospital following an eruption on a volcanic island in New Zealand, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said. Five people have died and eight are still missing following an eruption on a volcanic island in New Zealand, the country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said.
Ardern told reporters in Whakatane, a town near the volcanic White Island, that a number of people were in hospital in critical condition. She said that New Zealanders and tourists from Australia, the US, Britain, China and Malaysia were among the missing and injured. New Zealand police do not expect to find any more survivors on White Island, where two explosions in quick succession sent up a huge plume of ash that could be seen from the North Island.
She said that New Zealanders and tourists from Australia, the United States, Britain, China and Malaysia were among the injured. Some 31 people remain in hospital after three people were discharged overnight. In total, 47 people visited the island on Monday.
A police spokesman said that 31 people were in hospital. He confirmed that five people had died. Ardern praised the efforts of first responders, including a number of helicopters that rescued people from the island. “All of us would want to acknowledge the efforts they went to to ensure that everyone who could be evacuated was,” said Ardern.
The volcano on White Island erupted on Monday with a towering blast of ash and scalding steam as tourists were exploring. Police said that the site was still too dangerous hours later for rescuers to search for the missing but that aircraft had seen no signs of life. Every year thousands of tourists take boat trips and helicopter tours to view the White Island’s dramatic landscape. Some have questioned whether the privately owned island, which is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano, should have been operating as a tourist destination. The Māori name of the island is Whakaari.
The disaster immediately raised questions of why people were allowed to visit the island 30 miles (50km) off mainland New Zealand after scientists had noted an uptick in volcanic activity in recent weeks. White Island is the tip of an undersea volcano. Raymond Cas, emeritus professor at Melbourne’s Monash University’s school of earth, atmosphere and environment, said it was “a disaster waiting to happen”.
The eruption sent a plume of steam and ash about 12,000 feet (3,660 meters) into the air. “Having visited it twice, I have always felt that it was too dangerous to allow the daily tour groups that visit the uninhabited island volcano by boat and helicopter,” Cas told the Australian Science Media Centre.
The GeoNet agency, which monitors volcanoes and earthquakes in New Zealand, had raised the alert level on White Island on 18 November from one to two on a scale where five represents a major eruption, noting an increase in sulfur dioxide gas, which originates from magma deep in the volcano. It also said that volcanic tremors had increased from weak to moderate strength. Ardern said that the island had operated as a tourist site for decades, but added: “It is a very unpredictable volcano there will be questions that will be asked and do need to be answered by the appropriate authorities.”
White Island is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano. About 70% of the volcano lies under the sea. Twelve people were killed on the island in 1914 when it was being mined for sulfur. Part of a crater wall collapsed and a landslide destroyed the miners’ village and the mine itself. A camera run by Geological hazard trackers GeoNet, which takes pictures of the site every 10 minutes, showed a group of people visiting the crater at 2.10pm. The next shot, taken at 2.20pm, was completely distorted by the blast.
The remains of buildings from another mining enterprise in the 1920s are now a tourist attraction. The island became a private scenic reserve in 1953, and daily tours allow more than 10,000 people to visit every year. Up to 50 people, including more than 20 Australian tourists, were on or near the island at the time of the eruption, which happened at 2.11pm on Monday, during busy tourist season. Some 23 people managed to escape.
The island is also known by the indigenous Māori name Whakaari. Rescue helicopters carried out a number of reconnaissance flights over the island on Monday but reported “no signs of life have been seen at any point”, a police statement said.
More details soon … “Police believe that anyone who could have been taken from the island alive was rescued at the time of the evacuation,” the statement added.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed that Australians were among those visiting the island, adding: “We are working to determine their wellbeing.”
All of the 23 people rescued had sustained injuries, mostly burns, police said, and seven people who were in a critical condition had been flown to hospitals in Tauranga and Auckland.
Michael Schade, who was visiting the island with his parents, had stood at the crater just 20 minutes before the eruption. He was among a boatload of tourists just off the White Island that witnessed the disaster, and which returned to rescue a crowd of people on the jetty.
“Some people had pockets of burns, other people were fine, and others were really rough,” Schade told the Guardian on Monday. Some were screaming, while others were in silent shock.
Passengers set up an assembly line to pass water bottles to people with burns, as well as jackets, inhalers and eye drops.
Unstable conditions, toxic gases and ash fall prevented rescue teams from searching the island – which lies 30 miles (48km) from the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, in the Bay of Plenty – on foot.
Kevin O’Sullivan, the chief executive officer of the New Zealand Cruise Association, said a tour party of 30 to 38 people from the Ovation of the Seas had been touring White Island when the eruption took place, and the party had not returned. Their names and nationalities were being given to the police, he said. The ship would remain in Tauranga port at least overnight.
Royal Caribbean, which owns the Ovation of the Seas, asked for prayers to be said for all involved.
New Zealand Red Cross has created a Family Links webpage, where families can register the names of missing relatives, and where individuals can list that they are safe.
A pilot and four passengers whose damaged helicopter was shown in footage taken after the eruption, were unharmed, it was confirmed on Monday. The helicopter belonged to Volcanic Air, a tour company based in Rotorua, which said the crew had been returned to the mainland via boat on Monday afternoon.
About 10,000 tourists a year visit the island, which was bought by George Raymond Buttle, an Auckland stockbroker, in 1936. It is now owned by the Buttle Family Trust.
The island last experienced a short-lived eruption in 2016, in which no one was hurt. GeoNet raised the alert level for the White Island in November after noting an increase in volcanic activity, from one to two on a scale where five represents a major eruption.