White Island/Whakaari volcano exploded in 2019, prompting debate over natural hazard tourism
volcano that fatally erupted in 2019 have rejected arguments from the country’s workplace safety regulator that they ultimately managed and controlled activities on the island and bore legal responsibility for whether visitors to it were safe.exploded on 9 December 2019, 22 people were killed – 17 of them Australians – with 25 others injured. It prompted renewed debate about controls for natural hazard tourism in New Zealand.
Six organisations admitted to the counts against them before the case came to trial. But despite the investigation being billed as the most complex of its kind in New Zealand’s history, the case against the remaining parties started to crumble after the trial began in July: five firms or people, who had pleaded not guilty, had the charges against them dismissed after prosecution evidence concluded last month.
But James Cairney, the lawyer for WML, said the volcano’s owners had set up the firm solely to manage the financial side of granting licences, and the existence of a commercial interest was not anything to be ashamed of. Nothing in the licences granted to the tourism operators promised an ongoing role for WML in operations on the island, said Cairney. He added that in any case, the firm had done everything the law required of landowners.
“WML effectively points the finger at everyone else,” she added. A science agency and local emergency managers came under scrutiny during the case over their readiness for such a disaster.
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