Whakaari / White Island eruption: new evidence shows tour halted minutes before fatal eruption

By RNZ

New evidence reveals that a hike through the Whakaari / White Island crater was interrupted in the minutes leading up to last December’s fatal explosion, as a guide noticed the situation was getting dangerous.

In the audio posted on Australia’s 60 Minutes program, an anonymous tour guide tells his group that the island is at level two but approaching level three.

Survivor Stephanie Browitt told the show that her tour was cut short. He lost his father and sister in the blast, suffered burns to 70 percent of his body and has had 20 operations, with eight fingers amputated since then.

She and other victims say they were left for dead and more lives could have been saved in the moments after the blast when rescue helicopters turned around.

Browitt, a 23-year-old Australian college graduate, set foot on Whakaari on December 9 last year with her father Paul and sister Krystal.

The group, on a day trip from Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas cruise ship, say they were not warned of any eruption threats on the island that day.

The images and audio, published exclusively on Australia’s 60 Minutes program from Krystal Browitt’s cell phone, reveal for the first time the voice of the anonymous family tour guide pointing out the danger shortly before the eruption.

“The higher the level, the more risk there is of an eruption. Level three is an eruption,” the tour guide is heard saying.

“Oh really,” Krystal Browitt said.

“So we are at level two approaching level three now,” the tour guide said on the recording.

The last photo of the family shows the trio posing, all smiles, in front of the island’s crater.

But Browitt told 60 Minutes Australia minutes after that image, black smoke began to rise.

“The first thing we did was take a photo, not realizing it’s an eruption and the danger, and just seconds later we heard the front tour guides yell ‘run’.”

Browitt said the guide had previously interrupted part of the tour because gas emissions on the island seemed too unusual.

His Australian compatriot John Cozad also miraculously survived, but lost his son Chris, who died in hospital while John was in a coma.

“All of a sudden these hot crystals started hitting my forehead. They just got worse and worse. I remember saying the Lord’s Prayer to me because I thought I was gone.”

Surviving with his wife Lauren, Matt Urey said the blast quickly covered everything in sight.

“Visibility dropped to zero. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and it was hot. Everything was on fire. I could feel my skin burning.”

Wearing a full face burn mask, Browitt told 60 Minutes that he thought he was going to die.

“I was turning around. The force was so strong that my whole body was being pushed and pushed and rolled to the ground and I was hitting things while burning at the same time. It was the scariest moment of my life.”

Matt and Lauren Urey managed to get on board a boat, which took 90 minutes to return to Whakatāne.

“That boat trip was agonizing. We were burned horribly, lying in the sun splashed with salty water and freezing air while we were completely burned. It was excruciatingly painful,” said Matt Urey.

Almost immediately after they saw the eruption from the mainland, helicopter pilots Jason Hill and Tom Storey flew in and were among the first to arrive.

They hoped the paramedics weren’t left behind, but it ended up being them who saved people, including Stephanie Browitt.

The rescue helicopters were on their way but were told to turn around.

St John’s medical director Tony Smith told the program that the information they had at the time was that it was unsafe to fly to the island and leave its people ashore, so they returned to Whakatāne.

They reached the island an hour later, but in hindsight, he said they were too late.

“We have reflected. Knowing what we know now, we could have flown to the island earlier, but if we had gotten to the island sooner, I am absolutely sure that sadly we would not have saved more people,” Smith said.

But Browitt told 60 Minutes that if the rescue effort were faster, others like his father and sister might have survived.

“It’s very disturbing just because I know it would definitely have made a difference for a lot of the people who were there, who were waiting, lives could have been saved that weren’t that day.”

Twenty-one people died, the next day or in the following weeks. Two bodies have never been recovered from the island.

Another 26 were injured, most with long roads to recover.

A WorkSafe investigation is underway into the incident.

The first anniversary of the eruption is next month.

– Checkpoint, RNZ