New Zealand volcano: no survivors on White Island, police believe – as it happened
Police update follows reconnaissance flights over island, as death toll expected to rise from five
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Some academics have been questioning the wisdom in allowing White Island to be a tourism destination.
Raymond Cas, emeritus professor at Monash University’s school of earth, atmosphere and environment, told the Australian Science Media Centre that he always felt it was too dangerous.
“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,” he said.
“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 amphitheater-shaped 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.
“I certainly wouldn’t be recommending tourists be approaching a site that has recently been throwing material up 30 metres into the air,” he told SBS News.
The eruption was “relatively minor”, Professor Wyman said. “New Zealand sees things like this quite frequently.
“Usually people don’t die from these kinds of eruptions, but that is likely because they are not usually inappropriately close.”
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