NZ military set for risky mission to retrieve bodies
New Zealand’s military will embark on a risky dawn mission to retrieve eight bodies from the still-active White Island volcano, officials said yesterday, as pressure from distraught victims’ families mounted.
Teams will move in “shortly after first light” today, deputy police commissioner Mike Clement said, despite volcanologists warning that the chances of another significant eruption in the next 24 hours had risen to 50-60 percent.
“They will go on to the island and they will make every effort to recover all of the bodies” and transport them to military frigate HMNZS Wellington anchored off the coast, he said.
With the help of drone flights and helicopter pilots who were near the volcano immediately after the eruption, authorities have located six of the eight bodies on the island.
Recovering the six will be a priority, Clement said.
The number of people believed to have died in Monday’s disaster now stands at 16.
That includes the eight people thought to be still on White Island -- among them New Zealand tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman.
More than 20 people are in hospital’s intensive care, many with severe burns, while seven others have been transferred to burns units in Australia.
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