A volcano erupted on the coast of New Zealand in the year 2019, at the time of the eruption many tourists and tour guides are available on the island. Whakaari another name for White Island, is an active stratovolcano. This white island is situated around 30 miles from the east of New Zealand’s North Island. This is the most active volcano in New Zealand, continually erupting from December 1975 to September 2000. Some eruptions were also recorded in the year 2012 and 2016. Apart from being an active Volcano, this is a very popular tourist place in the area of 800 acres and also access is granted by many tour operators.
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But Three years ago a deadly eruption occurred, and now the whole thing of incident was recalled in the new Netflix documentary movie name “The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari”. Rory Kennedy the director of the movie presents the whole incident in a very dramatic way. Let’s talk about the day of the incident, it was 9 December 2019 and the time was 2.11 PM; the volcano starts erupting through the release of steam and volcanic gases making an explosion, after some time rock and ash were seen in the air. According to official reports around 47 people are there on the island at that time including tourists from different countries like Malaysia, Australia, America, China New Zealand and Britain.
Installed webcam on the island captured pictures of the crater just a few minutes before the volcano erupted. New Zealand police confirmed the fatality of five people and eight were missing. After the incident other tour operators tried to rescue people on the island after the sudden eruption of the Volcano. After that three helicopters were also used to rescue the after the serious eruption from the island. A total of 34 people were rescued that day on the island, most of them were severe burns and were admitted to hospitals in New Zealand and Australia. After a few weeks, the death number increased due to some serious injuries and a few bodies were recovered from the island.
21 is the number of total confirmed fatalities. An American and Australian man died after serious injuries and two recovered bodies were declared dead. While in July 2020, around after seven months after the incident a news agency reported that a German man died due to some medical complications while receiving treatment for serious injuries so the total death toll reached 22.
Some of the people who are killed in this accident were identified with the help of DNA samples, forensic dentist reports and some other methods. After this deadly eruption, tour companies are not permitted to carry people onto White Island but White Island Flights tour companies are still in the operation and the only legal way to get a look at the island.
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