White Island volcano: Tour operators ordered to pay millions to victims
- Published
22 people died in 2019 when the White Island volcano erupted
A New Zealand court has ordered NZ$10m (£4.8m; $6m) in compensation to the victims of the White Island volcano disaster, where 22 people died.
Some 47 people were touring the volcano when it erupted in December 2019. Many of the survivors were gravely injured.
The firm that owns the island and those that operated tours there were found guilty last year of negligence and safety breaches.
The court said their failure to provide proper checks had ruined many lives.
It also found that the operators had ignored the signs of heightened activity in the weeks leading up to the eruption on the island, which is also known by its Māori name Whaakari.
On Friday, the Auckland District Court ordered the company that owns the island, Whakaari Management Limited (WML), to pay NZ$4.57m in damages to victims.
WML - which manages the privately-owned island on behalf of a family - licenced tour groups to visit the volcano.
The court also ordered White Island Tours, the company which had brought the tourists to the island for a walking tour, to pay NZ$4.68m in reparations.
Three other tour companies, Volcanic Air Safaris, Aerius Limited and Kahu NZ Limited, were also ordered to pay damages.
Separately, GNS Science - a government-owned research body that monitors New Zealand's volcanos - was ordered to pay a fine of $54,000 for inadequately communicating with contractors about the risks on White Island.
"GNS observes that as a public body there will be a negative impact on the important service it provides given any fine would need to come from its operating budget," Judge Evangelos Thomas said.
"However, the public interest in holding all entities, including important public entities, to account outweighs that."
A 2021 memorial in the New Zealand town of Whakatane to the tourists affected in the disaster
Seventeen of the tourists who died on White Island were from Australia, with the others from the US, New Zealand and Germany. Tourists from the UK, China and Malaysia were also among those affected.
Judge Thomas said the compensation was "no more than a token recognition" of the victims' suffering.
Families were broken after the deaths of loved ones, he acknowledged. Many of the survivors suffered terrible burns and were still enduring a painful toll.
"The treatment was often painful, arduous, disheartening. For many it remains ongoing," he said.
"Many people grapple with disfigurement of one kind or another. It's not just simply the physical injury that has caused such harm… the emotional consequences deepen the suffering. We acknowledge that harm."
Payments will be divided among the victims, with larger amounts for the families of the 22 people who were killed.
In testimonies earlier this week, relatives of those who died told the court the "grief never goes away".
The mother of Hayden Marshall-Inman, a 40-year-old tour guide killed in the eruption, said: "When Hayds died on White Island, a part of me died. My heart carries the loss of him day and night."
As well as being ordered to pay damages, WML were fined NZ$978,000 for breaching workplace safety laws.
The firm's owners - brothers Andrew, James and Peter Buttle - previously faced individual criminal prosecutions over the deaths, but the charges were dropped last year.
Earlier in the week, the court heard that WML had no money or assets to offer by way of compensation as it was only a corporate trustee for the Buttles' Whakaari Management Trust.
According to Radio New Zealand, it also did not have liability insurance at the time of the disaster - meaning the damages would have to be paid out of pocket.
Judge Thomas said on Friday that there was "nothing to stop the Buttles, as WML's shareholders, from advancing the necessary funds to cover that obligation".
"There may be no commercial basis for doing so, but many would argue there is an inescapable moral one," he said, noting that the brothers "appear to have profited handsomely from tours to Whakaari".
"We wait to see what the Buttles will do. The world is watching."
Judge Thomas acknowledged that the other companies that had been found liable may also struggle to find the required funds.
The White Island disaster prompted the most extensive and complex investigation ever undertaken by WorkSafe NZ, which was also criticised for failing to monitor activities on the island between 2014 and 2019.
Tourism activities on White Island have not resumed since the eruption.
Some of the tourists who bought their tour ticket to Whakaari through Royal Caribbean Cruises have already reached settlements after suing the Florida-based company in the US.
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- Published31 October 2023
