New Zealand volcano eruption – Newlyweds and boy, 7, among 27 tourists feared missing in White Island disaster
A NEWLY wed couple, a family-of-four and five kids are among 27 tourists feared missing after the White Island volcano eruption. Five people born in the UK are among those listed as missing when the volcano erupted while dozens of tourists were exploring New Zealand’s most active volcano. Eighteen of an estimated 50 people were […]
A NEWLY wed couple, a family-of-four and five kids are among 27 tourists feared missing after the White Island volcano eruption.
Five people born in the UK are among those listed as missing when the volcano erupted while dozens of tourists were exploring New Zealand’s most active volcano.
Eighteen of an estimated 50 people were rescued from the island and cops saying they no longer expect to find more survivors.
Newlywed couple James, 23, and Madeleine Whitehouse, 24, from Brisbane, were also listed as missing as of early Tuesday morning.
The couple had married last September and had been on holiday in New Zealand.
“You fill my heart with joy every day James, and I’m so blessed to be your wife,” Mrs Whitehouse wrote about her husband on their first wedding anniversary.
Also reported as missing are 51-year-old Anthony Langford and his wife Kristine and their children Jesse, 19, and Winona, 17, from Brisbane.
Other Australians on the missing list include Amy Miall, 30, from Brisbane, Mathew Thomas, 31, from Tamsworth, Richard Aaron Elzer, 32, and Jason Griffiths, 33, from Coffs Harbour, and 56-year-old Sydney resident Jane Murray.
Three Brits – two 67-year-old men and an 80-year-old woman – are listed as among those still missing on a website set up by the New Zealand Red Cross, the Evening Standard reported.
The Sun is not naming the trio because neither has been confirmed by authorities to have been on White Island.
Girls aged 17, 15 and 14 and boys aged 12, seven are still unaccounted for, according to the site.
The volcano suddenly erupted at 2.11pm local time, sending a 12,000ft plume of smoke and rock into the air.
A scientific monitoring camera appeared to capture a group of tourists walking through the volcano’s crater at 2.10pm – just one minute before the eruption.
The camera – which takes a new still image every ten minutes – did not take another clear shot, and is believed to have been buried in rubble from the blast.
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A fleet of rescue helicopters was dispatched to send emergency workers to the area in the hope of finding survivors.
Twenty three people were brought off the island, of five of whom later died.
The first victim has been identified as Hayden Marshall-Inman, a tour guide for White Island tours.
WHY DID WHITE ISLAND ERUPT?
Just below Earth's outer crust is a layer of magma, or liquid rock, known as the mantle.
Volcanoes form when pressure in the mantle begins to build, and magma is forced up through gaps in the Earth’s crust.
In certain conditions, such as movements of the planet’s tectonic plates or currents of heat in the mantle, the pressure will build further and, eventually, the volcano will erupt, throwing magma into the air.
New Zealand lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile chain of 452 volcanoes around the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
The ring runs up past Asia and Russia, across to Alaska, and down the westerly coasts of North and South America.
Since 1850, about 90 per cent of the most powerful eruptions in the world have happened along this boundary.
White Island was a very active volcano and questions are now being raised about whether tourists should ever have been allowed to visit.
Dr. Jessica Johnson, a volcanologist at the University of East Anglia, told the Guardian that increased numbers of small earthquakes and more volcanic gas detected than usual in recent weeks had seen the alert level raised.
Even with the alert levels raised, volcanic eruptions are notoriously difficult to predict.
Speaking to the Australia Science Media Centre, Raymond Cas of Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere, and Environment described White Island as a “disaster waiting to happen”.
“Having visited it twice, I have always felt that it was too dangerous to allow the daily tour groups,” he said.