Island Tragedy

White Island erupts on 9th December last year. Courtesy Twitter/Michael Schade.

Nigel Benton considers whether the deaths of 21 people that occurred when New Zealand’s White Island erupted could have been avoided

More than two months have passed since the afternoon of Monday 9 th December, when

New Zealand’s White Island/Whakaari erupted while people were visiting the live volcano - with tragic consequences.

At the time of writing 21 people are confirmed dead, including two whose bodies have never been found, while 25 people remain in hospital with burn injuries requiring complex surgery.

With information emerging about how the situation unfolded, the wisdom of allowing the volcanic island to be a tourism destination has been questioned.

Raymond Cas, Emeritus Professor at Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, told the Australian Science Media Centre that he always felt White Island was too dangerous for excursions, advising “White Island has been a disaster waiting to happen for many years. 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.

“It has a very active geothermal system with many steaming gas vents and varying numbers of hot water filled crater lakes in the floor of an amphitheatreshaped large crater.”

Associate Professor Derek Wyman, a Geoscientist at Sydney University, said he was surprised tourists were allowed so close to the site, given its recent history, telling SBS News “I certainly wouldn’t be recommending tourists be approaching a site that has recently been throwing material up 30 metres into the air.”

Professor Wyman went on to say the eruption was “relatively minor”, noting “New Zealand sees things like this quite frequently.

“Usually people don’t die from according to 2018 estimates, making daily trips to White Island, promotional material emphasised it as being “one of the world’s few accessible live volcanoes” with “amazing geothermal activity”.

Another website advised that tours operate “through varying alert levels but passengers should be aware that there is always a risk of eruptive activity”.

Significantly, unlike other volcanoes in New Zealand, White Island, situated in the Bay of Plenty, 48 kilometres offshore from the North Island, is distant from emergency services and has no easy means to escape an eruption.

In addition, documents released since the tragedy have revealed that an emergency management plan dealing with an eruption at White Island had not been finalised when the volcano erupted.

Information revealed among documents released in early February by the Whakatane District Council and Bay of

Plenty Regional Council shows that White Island Tours, owned by Ngati Awa Group Holdings Ltd (a Maori tribalbased corporation and the exclusive operator of boat-based excursions to

the island) had 38 boat passengers and five crew on the island at 2.11pm on Monday 9 th December, when the first eruption occurred.

The other people on the Island were three passengers and the pilot of private helicopter tour company Volcanic Air.

That eruption created an ash plume of about 4,000 metres and there were further eruptions at 4.30pm and 5.49pm that afternoon.

According to the documents, one Westpac Rescue Helicopter, two Kahu NZ helicopters and one from Volcanic Air, all landed on the island after the eruption to help survivors, most of whom had burns and respiratory injuries.

Others were triaged on White Island Tours’ boat Phoenix on its way to Whakatane Wharf where a cordon and further triage and staging area was in place.

All known survivors were removed from the island within four hours of the first eruption.

Tourists on White Island (Wikimedia commons/Kimberley Collins).

A woman photographs the 9th December eruption (Twitter/Michael Schade).

A Volcanic Air helicopter left on the Island.

and 22 males from ages 14 to 72 years. Nationalities included five New Zealanders, 24 Australians, two from the United Kingdom, four Germans, nine Americans, two Chinese and one Malaysian/Australian. 38 of those caught in the eruption were passengers on the cruise vessel, Ovation of the Seas, owned by USbased Royal Caribbean Cruises.

With the death toll currently standing

at 21, including two whose bodies have never been found, as of 3 rd February,

according to the New Zealand Ministry of

Health seven patients remain in hospital in New Zealand, one of whom is in a critical condition, while 13 patients have been transferred to Australia and five further patients have been transferred to their home countries.

Two of the dead were guides with White Island Tours.

Without the heroic efforts of first responders, who used helicopters and boats to rescue the injured, it has been acknowledged that the death toll could well have been even higher.

In addition to the emergency services,

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was also quickly on hand, praising the courage of the first responders and pilots who surveyed the Island from the air looking for signs of life after the eruption.

Subsequently, New Zealand troops landed on White Island to recover the bodies of people who were killed.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, questions are being raised about whether businesses who profited from the island will be held accountable.

New Zealand Police began conducting

investigations over the incident for the Coroner while WorkSafe, the public body responsible for enforcing New Zealand’s

Health and Safety Act, is investigating the operations of White Island Tours – with indications that the company

is facing a fine of up to NZ$1.5 million and that it could also be ordered to pay reparations.

Prime Minister Ardern later told the media that WorkSafe’s investigation, which would look at the possible liability of tourism companies, could take up to a year.

However, in a strange episode the day after the eruption, New Zealand Police announced a criminal investigation had begun, only to retract the statement hours later.

New Zealand Police Minister Stuart Nash told the media it was a “slip of the tongue” while, on 16 th December, Prime Minister Ardern praised the Ngati Awa Group for looking after the victims’ families and said the New Zealand

White Island in early 2019 (above and below). Courtesy of Tourism New Zealand.

Government would work with the tribe

on a possible memorial service. One reporter asked: “Is it appropriate to be working with Ngati Awa on a memorial

when they could potentially be under investigation as an owner of White Island Tours?”

Prime Minister Ardern replied that “regardless of their commercial interests, they are local iwi (tribe), and they have been providing a very important role locally.”

Ngati Awa Group Holdings Ltd has more than $151 million in assets. Its Chairman Paul Quinn, who is also Director of White Island Tours, is a wellconnected member of the Maori business elite and was an MP in the National Party Government from 2008 to 2011.

Subsequently media have reported on a number of minor previous infringements

in White Island Tours’ safety record while on 15 th December, Stuff quoted a health

and safety respirator supplier saying that the gas masks provided to visitors to the Island gave inadequate protection from the toxic gasses emitted from the volcano.

One previous visitor to the island told Stuff the risks had not been explained, with the female tourist quoted as saying “I think if I was told explicitly that there could be dangerous gasses on the island and the lack of a quick escape plan beforehand, I would not have gone.”

In terms of liability, New Zealand’s no-fault personal injury laws enables disaster victims to receive support from the state-owned Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). However, individuals are not allowed to sue companies for damages while the decision to prosecute is in the hands of the Police and WorkSafe.

Royal Caribbean, which is based in the USA, could be sued there.

With Royal Caribbean’s website showing that the ‘White Island/Whakaari shore excursion’ page did not include any warnings about potential hazards, US-based lawyer Jim Walker told media “sending families without a warning into the crater with virtually no way to flee when it was more likely than normal for the volcano to erupt is exceedingly reckless.”

WorkSafe itself is implicated in the lack of regulation in the tourism industry. It reportedly allowed three helicopter companies to operate at White Island without registering as ‘adventure tourism’ operators, in breach of WorkSafe’s own requirements. Regulators never intervened to stop volcano tours, even when the New Zealand Government agency GNS banned its scientists from visiting for two months in 2013 due to heightened risk of eruption at that time.

The disaster bears some similarities to the Pike River mine explosion in 2010, which killed 29 people. No one has been held accountable despite evidence of gross safety breaches by Pike River Coal, which placed production and profit ahead of workers’ safety.

While future legal action over the tragedy is still the subject of speculation, one immediate aftermath of the tragedy is likely to see White Island Tours scale back or even cease its operations, with 45 workers facing an uncertain future. With thanks to Tom Peters.