Ominous signs grew pre-blow
Seven life-threatening ‘near misses’ on Whakaari noted
Academics noted seven “near misses” at Whakaari in the years leading up to December’s lethal eruption. Research shows academics published mounting evidence of the “severe” risks on the Bay of Plenty volcanic island before the blow on December 9 that killed 21 people and critically injured at least 12 others with blast injuries and burns.
Thirty-eight of the 47 people on the erupting island were from the Royal Caribbean liner Ovation of the Seas and this week Australian law firm Stacks Goudkamp confirmed it had been hired by passengers and their family members to sue the cruise line.
The research, funded by the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and published in 2018, said “even small eruptions at Whakaari pose a potentially lethal hazard” and cited “seven near misses” since 2006 where rocks and lava (ballistics) thrown from Whakaari had threatened lives.
Principal investigator Dr Ben Kennedy, from the University of Canterbury, and his team wrote about the “increasing vulnerable population exposed to ballistic hazards on volcano summits” as volcano tourism grew globally.
They referred to the deaths of 58 hikers in Japan in 2014 after Mt Ontake erupted.
“Only bad weather and the time of eruption ( near midnight) prevented casualties of similar scale from the August 2012, Upper Te Maari eruption on the Tongariro Crossing.
“Similar eruptions have occurred frequently over the last seven years at Whakaari.
“These unheralded eruptions exemplify the hazard and risks from volcanic ballistics are poorly understood and difficult to manage,” Kennedy and his team wrote.
They concluded volcano ballistics were “often ignored” in hazard assessments.
A master’s thesis completed in 2018 by one of Kennedy’s research team, Stephanie Gates, found that up to 21 per
cent of the tourism pathway at Whakaari was pelted with “blocks with sufficient impact energies to cause serious injury or death” in an eruption at 9.35pm on April 27, 2016. It was at alert level 1. GNS staff ruled in the following weeks that “survivability during the eruption most likely would have been low in areas of the main crater floor”.
Gates’ research analysed the material left by the blow, determining that blocks were ejected “at speeds between 45 and 65 metres per second”.
“The modelling suggests that even small eruptions at Whakaari pose a potentially lethal hazard. Daily tours, weather permitting, take about 18,000 visitors per year within the ballistic hazard footprint of previous eruptions, as well as the pyroclastic flow and ash fall hazard footprints.”
Pyroclastic flows, a fastmoving current of hot gas and volcanic matter — as seen at
White Island on December 9 — destroy nearly everything in their path.
Gates this month told NZME her thesis was not “quantified analysis of the danger or risk posed to tourists” and it “focused on the eruption dynamics and hazard footprint”.
Her thesis said the Whakaari hazard footprint was “poorly constrained” and the proven potential for harm highlights the need for greater appreciation of their danger.
But it also acknowledged “closure of attractions due to an eruption can severely impact . . . livelihoods” and that Whakaari was a “unique case” because it was privately owned by the Buttle family.
Whakaari was at alert level 2 leading up to December’s eruption, meaning scientists at the Crown Research Institute GNS Science had issued a public advisory about moderate to heightened volcanic unrest.
The alert had been in place for exactly three weeks.
GNS volcanologist Dr Brad Scott spoke to the Herald on Sunday about NZ’s volcanic alert level system, and tourism at Whakaari, in 2014 — 100 years since an avalanche of volcanic debris killed at least 10 sulphur miners there.
The article said, “GNS Science staff have had ‘ terse discussions’ with tour operators who have landed visitors . . . in conditions which make volcanologists anxious.
“Anything between a level 2 and 3 would put Scott off going,” the story said.
GNS Science staff had planned to install new monitoring equipment on the island on December 12, 2019.
University of Canterbury professor Tom Wilson said the uptake of any academic research “can be very, very slow”.
“What becomes essential, though, is who actually has the responsibility and the role to manage risk, and for whom, at the island?”
That question seems unlikely to be answered while the coronial inquiry and WorkSafe investigation of the Whakaari tragedy are still under way.