Recovery plan under way as volcanic ash threatens to entomb bodies on Whakaari/White Island

Thursday, 12 December 2019

Hero pilot Mark Law is hoping bodies will be recovered before ash buries the dead.

Authorities are in a race against time to recover the bodies from Whakaari/White Island before they are entombed in the volcanic landscape.

Police on Thursday afternoon announced they were finalising a plan to commence recovery on Friday morning.

Deputy Commissioner John Tims said families would be briefed on the plan on Thursday afternoon, with further details released following that.

The announcement comes as Whakatane helicopter hero Mark Law outlined a chilling scenario where ash and the island's acidic environment potentially forever entombs the eight victims on Whakaari if officials wait out ongoing volcanic activity.

* Whakaari: Bedlam at Whakatāne Hospital as worker describes eruption aftermath

* Multiple casualties, multiple victims: Man who flew last survivor off Whakaari/White Island speaks

* Whakaari/White Island: Helicopter pilot said 'conditions perfect', but tremors prompt warning

* Whakaari/White Island: The fight to keep people alive after eruption

* Whakaari/White Island: People 'were in real distress' says chopper pilot**

During a candid interview with Stuff, Law revealed new details about the moment tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman was pulled from a stream and laid to rest on the barren rock of the island.

Meanwhile, a vulcanologist says it is common for ash and water to mix after an eruption creating a cement-like mixture, potentially hampering recovery.

Helicopter hero Mark Law has hit out at agencies involved in the body recovery, which he says are putting up too much red tape.

The same expert says it was plausible the recovery could be delayed by a month or more if perceived eruption risk remained high.

Bodies could be buried on island

Speaking before the police announcement, Law said he feared the eight bodies could be buried under ash or begin to disintegrate in the island's acidic environment.

Tourists prepare to look at a fumerole on Whakaari/White Island on one of the last tours before Monday's eruption.

'The acidity of the island … always has been brutal.'

'There's a scenario unfolding here where if that seismograph keeps rolling along like it will, they won't go.'

If more ash falls on the bodies, followed by rain, the mixture could set and bury the victims where they lie, he said.

There has been intermittent rain in Whakatane, 50km from the island, over the last day, but it is unclear if rain has fallen on the island.

Unstable conditions continued to hamper rescue workers after the volcano erupted in a towering blast of ash and scalding steam while dozens of tourists explored its moon-like surface.

'If acidity doesn't break the people down then they could get covered.'

Helicopter pilot Mark Law talks about rescuing people in the wake of the Whakaari eruption. (Video first published December 11, 2019.)

'If it continues to murmur away for the next two or three weeks or two or three months and they are not prepared to commit, the island might ash again.

'So there's more ash on the folks then there's obviously the breakdown of their bodies because of the acidity … there might be a real chance that we don't get out there and get them.'

Vulcanologist offers qualified support

Phil Shane is an associate professor of geology at the University of Auckland who studies the history of volcanoes.

He says ash particles come in a range of sizes, meaning if you wet them they can cement together and harden.

'That has happened at other volcanos.'

Mark Inman, the brother of tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, said he is frustrated at the 'red tape' stopping him from retrieving his brother's body from Whakaari/White Island.

'I can't categorically say it would happen here but that's a common phenomena in ash fall.'

That said, he believed it would be possible to extract the bodies from the hardened mixture.

Shane says perceptions of risk among experts on the ground in Whakatane had put them off so far.

'To tell the truth, you could probably go now, or you could have gone yesterday, it's all a matter of your perception of risk.

The vulcanologist also agreed the harsh acidic environment could hasten decomposition.

'But that might be balanced out by if the body is buried or partly buried it might not be fully exposed to the acidic conditions.'

Location of bodies revealed

When Law landed on the island he rushed between the victims to check who was dead and who was injured.

He described the harrowing moments he shook some of the people only to see they were clearly dead or in the final stages of dying.

'The deceased definitely were deceased, I went to nearly all of them and physically felt them and shook them and just looking for the response of life.'

Most of the bodies lie in the centre of the crater floor, between the crater lake and the crater bay, with the exceptions of two others closer to the beach.

One of Law's pilots, Tom Storey, saw tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman lying dead in a stream on the island.

'Tommy went down later and actually moved his body out of the stream bed and laid him to rest in a nicer posistion.'

None of the bodies are in the ocean but one remained in a stream, he said.

After he and other pilots rescued a dozen injured from the island on Monday, he was told he could not fly again to recover the bodies.

'We were gutted. Pretty angry about that.'

Law acknowledged the recovery had its risks.

But he believed those risks were worth taking to get the victims home to their families before it was too late.

'If you don't take a risk you don't get anywhere.'