UKH

https://news.sky.com/story/new-zealand-pm-people-unaccounted-for-as-volcano...

I've been following this since this morning, and it's pretty horrible.

5 confirmed dead, and a double-figure number still thought to be on the island, with "no signs of life" but no way for rescuers to safely get there to check just now. And quite a few rescued but with serious injuries.

I went on a White Island tour fifteen years or so ago, it's a fascinating place, but this shows how easily it can go wrong.

I believe it's New Zealand's most active volcano. Sounds like people were playing Russian roulette to me.

Volcanic activity and risk aren't the same thing, it depends what form the activity typically takes.

White Island was reckoned to be fairly safe - very highly monitored, and with tours going there almost daily. Russian Roulette - maybe, but more so than, say, winter climbing?

Keep in mind that lots of people live on or beside active volcanoes, never mind visit them.

Well I imagine that point of view will have changed a bit.

Is it bad of me to be thinking of this phrase, said in a Father Ted way?

The bulletins from the scientists monitoring the island are interesting:
https://www.geonet.org.nz/volcano/vab/

It doesn't sound like they foresaw an eruption on anything like this scale. (Which is not meant to imply that they should have done.) If you read the reports, it sounds like a tragic accident rather than stupid tourists or a reckless cruise company.

If 10,000 tourists per year have visited the island successfully since 1953, that doesn't seem like an unconscionable risk to me, though obviously I feel for those actually caught up in this incident.

Reading your replies on this thread feels a lot like seeing some of the comments on news articles about people getting killed in avalanches.

I hope you're OK.

Yep. It'll obviously be reviewed, and hopefully safety will be improved, but it seems quite possible that it was just very bad luck, happening to people on an activity that carried a real, but low, risk.

I'm fine thanks.

It just strikes me that the dead seem to have been on a sightseeing trip, either from the mainland or from a cruise ship. Presumably they had little idea of the risk.

When going out winter climbing or off piste skiing people are always aware that there is a risk and probably a reasonable idea of how big that risk is.

Yeah, I've been around quite a few NZ volvcanoes, not White Island, they are generally pretty safe but its such a cool place because it is geologically active.

I've been very close to the crater on Ruapehu that we considered very low risk, then a year later it erupted and a guy lost his leg. It's like being on a snow slope. At some point the slope will most likely go. There's never no risk around an active volcano.

Yes plenty ways to see the island. It does mention here that ten miners were killed a century ago but nothing else about the risk.

https://www.whakatane.com/activities/white-island

I think it's reasonable to comment if someone gets caught in an avalanche when it's a level 4 day. Some of the reports I read made it sound like the equivalent of a level 4 day (week) on that volcano.

Not according to the scientists (see my link upthread). They assessed it at a level 2 out of 5, which seems to have been pretty normal for the island. They specifically mention in the report 6 days ago that conditions seemed similar to other recent years when the volcano was fairly active but didn't erupt on this scale.

Terrible accident all around. I also feel sorry for those scientists, who likely feel they've somehow caused this and quite probably will be blamed too.

I wonder what safety measures (other than avoiding the island) could have prevented the worst of the tragedy - everyone carrying masks / respirators, and a minimum bar of fitness (able to run for a few minutes) - or is that too naive?

It was only raised to level 4 after the eruption.

When we went, as a day trip from North Island, we all had to wear hard hats and carry gas masks (which seemed a bit funny at the time, less so now).

It was made clear to us that there were things that could go wrong, and that if we saw anything worrying or were warned about anything, we were to head straight back to the jetty for evacuation.

I think the main risk mentioned was going off-path and falling through a bit of thin crusty hydrothermal deposit into a steam pocket - but the helmets were compulsory, in case there was a small eruption.

That's very interesting. What doesn't get talked about is that this is an active volcano, spewing small amounts of toxic gases, quite 'low risk' most of the time, but obviously it doesn't take much to go wrong (a small eruption) to snuff you. One of the other top experts/vulcanologists said the obvious (not widely reported): this was an 'accident' waiting to happen.

Is Level 2 really justifiable for any commercial sightseeing tourist enterprise, where the clients are given no safety backup, no protective gear or masks whatever?

Ah, ok, I must've misread the article. I was sure it said it had already been raised to level 4 before the eruption, but clearly it hadn't.