WHAKATANE: New Zealand’s military will embark on a risky dawn mission to retrieve eight bodies from the still-active White Island volcano, officials said on Thursday, as pressure from distraught victims’ families mounted.
Teams will move in “shortly after first light” on Friday, deputy police commissioner Mike Clement said, despite volcanologists warning that the chances of another significant eruption in the next 24 hours had risen to 50-60 per cent.
“They will go on to the island and they will make every effort to recover all of the bodies” and transport them to military frigate HMNZS Wellington anchored off the coast, he said.
With the help of drone flights and helicopter pilots who were near the volcano immediately after the eruption, authorities have located six of the eight bodies on the island.
Recovering the six will be a priority, Clement said.
A geologist will be on hand sifting data in realtime to determine whether another eruption is imminent and whether the mission needs to be aborted.
“The risk is not gone,” Clement said. “Of course I’m going to worry tonight.”
“People are putting themselves on the front-line to do the right thing... our thoughts and our prayers and our love will be with them.” The number of people believed to have died in Monday’s disaster now stands at 16.
On White Island poisonous gases are still billowing from the volcanic vent and the island is blanketed in a thick layer of acidic ash.
— AFP
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