Trial opens over deadly 2019 New Zealand volcano disaster

WELLINGTON – A trial opened on Tuesday over

New Zealand’s 2019 White Island volcanic eruption,

a “massive explosion” that engulfed visiting tourists and killed 22 people while leaving others with terrible burns.

Around 50 people, mostly tourists from Australia, were on White Island – also known as Whakaari – in December 2019 when a deadly column of burning ash and steam blasted from a volcanic vent.

The eruption off the coast of the country’s North Island claimed 22 lives and left dozens more with horrific injuries, prompting a massive medical operation that saw victims treated in burns units across New Zealand and Australia.

“This volcano eruption involved a massive explosion,” prosecution barrister Kristy McDonald told Auckland District Court.

It resulted in a flow of “burning hot ash, scalding hot sea, poisonous volcanic ashes and rocks projected across the crater floor”, she added.

“The pyroclastic current engulfed all those who were on the volcano with estimates of speeds of approximately 60kmh.”

Six parties, including two tour companies and the island’s owners Whakaari Management, have been charged with breaching health and safety regulations in the lead-up to the disaster. They deny wrongdoing.

Ms McDonald said the family owners of the island were making around NZ$1 million (S$833,000) a year before disaster struck.

“They profited from every single tourist taken to Whakaari,” she told the court.

But the island’s management failed to make adequate risk assessments, provide personal protective equipment or ensure evacuation routes, she said.

“The end result was that tourists and workers went to the crater of an active volcano without being properly advised of the risks,” Ms McDonald added.

The charges do not carry the threat of jail time, but parties found guilty could face fines of up to NZ$1.5 million.

The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Another six companies have already pleaded guilty to health and safety charges, including three helicopter tour operators that entered eleventh-hour pleas last Friday.

Among those to previously plead guilty were White Island Tours, which ferried 21 of those killed – 19 tourists and two staff – to the volcanic site by boat.

Volcanic Air Safaris, which flew in one tourist who died on the island, has also pleaded guilty.

In May 2022, a judge

cleared New Zealand’s emergency management agency

of health and safety breaches.

Government body WorkSafe, which is leading the prosecution, had accused the agency of failing to properly communicate the risks of an eruption to land owners and the public.

But the agency’s lawyers successfully argued the charge was “wholly misconceived”.

Since the eruption, no boat or aircraft tours have been allowed to land on the island. AFP