NZ volcano eruption: dead tour guide’s warning

A tour guide killed on White ­Island spoke of his ‘nervousness’ it was going to erupt as video raises serious safety concerns | WATCH

Tourists with no protective gear other than hardhats during a tour into the White Island volcano last year. Picture: Youtube

A tour guide killed on White ­Island spoke last year of his ­“nervousness” that the active ­volcano was going to erupt, as pictures emerged showing tourists walking to the edge of the crater wearing shorts and T-shirts.

Video footage shows Hayden Marshall-Inman, a tour guide who was among 47 people on the island when the eruption occurred, raising serious concerns about the safety of the volcano.

In the video, shot in July 2018, Mr Marshall-Inman said: “Last September was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been. There was an ash eruption when we got here. So we were walking into it and I could ­definitely feel the nerves ­inside me, for sure.”

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Photographs shot before Monday’s disaster showed how close tourists could get to the volcano’s crater with minimal protective gear. One image showed a tour group wearing hardhats at the volcano with smoke billowing in the background. Many were wearing just shorts and T-shirts.

Up to 15 people were killed in Monday’s blast and more than 30 people were hospitalised with ­severe burns. Twenty-one of them remain in a critical condition.

Police on Wednesday released the names of seven Australians and two New Zealand tour guides identified as dead or presumed dead. Another Australian, Jason Griffiths, 33, of Coffs Harbour, was confirmed dead on Wednesday night after suffering severe burns.

Mr Griffiths had been among a group of nine friends on the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship and travelled to White Island with Coffs Harbour couple Richard Elzer and Karla Mathews, both of whom are among the Australians presumed dead. The remaining six friends said last night they were “incredibly saddened” but had memories from the cruise “that will stay with us forever” .

“On the 9th of December 2019, we were devastated by the news that three of our friends were visiting White Island on a shore excursion during the time of the eruption,” they said in a statement.

“Some time later, we discovered that two of our friends, Richard Elzer and Karla Mathews, were still on the island. We have been advised that there are no signs of life on the island.

“We then located our third friend, Jason Griffiths, in a hospital in the early hours of the next morning. From that moment until the moment of his passing, Jason was surrounded by friends and family members. We are incredibly saddened to have lost three of our closest friends.”

Deceased tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman.

The tourists on Monday had been taken to the island only three weeks after New Zealand’s monitoring service raised the alert to level 2 and described “explosive gas and steam-driven mud” jetting from the back of the crater lake.

Authorities in New Zealand are still grappling with how to get eight bodies off the island, which is estimated to have a 40 to 60 per cent chance of another eruption within 24 hours. Defence ships and aircraft are ready to assist in the ­recovery.

The bodies include those of 15-year-old South Australian girl Zoe Hosking, whose family said she was left on the island. The number of fatalities is expected to grow.

New Zealand Police Deputy Commissioner John Tims has declared a recovery mission “too dangerous” until the tremors have subsided. “We are confident in our ability to deliver the operation once we can be sure we can manage the very real dangers that anyone going on to the island would face,” Mr Tims said. “We understand and appreciate the desire of families and the public for the bodies to be retrieved as soon as possible.”

Mark Law, a helicopter pilot who flew rescue missions to the ­island after Monday’s eruption, said conditions then had been perfect for recovering the bodies.

“For us, it’s 20 minutes to get out there,” Mr Law said. “We could load those folks on and be back here in an hour and a half.” 

The nine Australians are: Sydney schoolboys ­Berenda and Matthew Hollander, 16 and 13, Adelaide man Gavin Dallow, 53, his stepdaughter Zoe Hosking, 15, Brisbane mother Julie Richards, 47, and her daughter Jessica, 20, and Coffs Harbour couple Richard Elzer and Karla Mathews, both 32. The two New Zealanders are Mr Marshall-Inman and Tip­ene Maangi.

Other Australians remain unaccounted for, including Melbourne woman Krystal Browitt, 21, North Willoughby family Anthony Langford, his wife, Kristine, and daughter Winona, 17. Reports surfaced yesterday that the Langfords’ son Jesse was alive and in hospital. Fears are also the Hollander brothers’ parents Barbara, and Martin, a Transport for NSW freight investment manager.

The government has sent three air force planes to New Zealand to bring home Australians caught in the deadly volcano explosion.

The military transport planes — modified for medical travel — are expected to bring 10 ­injured Australians to NSW and Victoria in the next 24 hours. The planes were dispatched as part of a repatriation plan worked out between the Australian and New Zealand governments.

Injured victims have been taken to burn centres across New Zealand. Some 120sq m of skin is being flown in to New Zealand for urgently needed grafts to treat the 29 White Island victims receiving intensive care in burns units.

One Australian patient in Wellington was due to be transported late on Tuesday to Sydney by New Zealand special air ­ambulance

Civil Defence emergency management director Sarah Stuart Black said the inability to get the bodies off the island had devastated families, some of whom would arrive in nearby Whakatane in the coming hours.

 

New Zealand Police Minister Stuart Nash said he had met Mr Law and asked him to ­assist police with the recovery ­operation.

He said New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush had not been in the country during the ­crisis but was “on his way back”. Mr Nash told authorities the government wanted the bodies recovered as soon as possible.

“Tonight I met with police and council staff about my expectations of police, around how they are to communicate,” Mr Nash said.

“It is important that all parties remain fully informed of developments as they occur. I expect a level of transparency and openness that perhaps has not existed up until now.”

He said Mr Law’s “skill and courage, let alone his intimate knowledge of the island and victim location, will be invaluable to the successful recovery of the victims”.

Volcanologist Graham Leonard from GNS Science, which monitors the volcano, said winds and activity within the volcano had complicated retrieval plans.