New Zealand may not be known for volcanoes, but it actually has more than 60 volcanoes located within its borders. Most of these are located on New Zealand’s North Island, which is on the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire. One of these volcanoes, New Zealand’s White Island, erupted on December 9th, 2019. The island itself is privately owned, and nobody lives on it, but since it is a famous tourist attraction, the explosion killed 19 people, including 17 tourists and 2 tour guides, and injured 27 more.
GeoNet, the agency monitoring the volcano, reported before the eruption that volcanic activity in that area had increased, but that the island was still safe for visitors and tourists. White Island Tours, the agency in charge of tourism in that region, gave out a warning to visitors that GeoNet had made this change, and also that there was a “potential for eruption hazards to occur.”
The eruption came as a surprise to everyone. Michael Schade, a tourist, said: “It was kind of hard to tell at first, because we’d seen the smoke before, but this was a huge cloud of it. We were taking photos and videos and then it dawned to us what had happened.”
Initially, there was an estimated 100 people on the island, but police quickly corrected that estimate to 47. Of the people there, 38 of them came from the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Many of them sustained major burns, as they wore only T-shirts and shorts that day. From the 47 people on the island, 19 died, 28 were injured, and there were 2 people who went missing.
Other than a few tremors, there was no more volcanic activity reported after the intense eruption. The cruise ship, Ovation of the Seas, postponed its departure until December 11th and also held a moment of silence honoring the victims of the explosion. Thankfully, all of the people affected would be covered by New Zealand’s accident compensation law, called ACC.
Article by Christopher Jin of Takoma Park Middle School
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons