New Zealand files 13 lawsuits over the deaths of 22 tourists visiting an erupting volcano

The Whakaari volcano (White Island, as it is more commonly known in New Zealand), erupted on December 9 last year with an explosion of ash, toxic gases and pulverized rocks that exceeded three kilometers in height.

At that time 47 people were visiting the place, located on the east coast of the North Island, on one of the popular tours where tourists could reach the lake inside the volcano's smoking crater.

The eruption killed 22 of them and seriously injured the survivors, some of whom are still receiving treatment for their burns.

After a year of investigations, the Executive has filed charges this Monday against those responsible for the visits for not guaranteeing security.

The New Zealand government's job security agency, Worksafe, opened an investigation a few days after the tragedy and this Monday announced that it is finally bringing charges against 13 of the parties (10 organizations and three people) involved in the incident, for not fulfill your responsibility to protect workers and visitors to the volcano.

"It is an unexpected event, but this does not mean that it was unpredictable," explained at a press conference the executive director of Worksafe, Phil Parkes.

"Those who visited the island did so with the reasonable expectation that appropriate systems had been put in place to ensure that they would return home safely."

Organizations that will go to trial for violating the Occupational Health and Safety Act face a fine of up to NZ $ 1.5 million (about € 880,000).

Among them, as expected, are the owners of the island, the company that offered the

and the owners of helicopters that took tourists to the volcano.

But what has caused more surprise is that among the accused are two government agencies: GNS Science, which controls the country's volcanic activity;

and the National Agency for Emergency Control.

GNS Science has defended its work and its employees while confirming that it will cooperate with authorities in the investigation.

Three weeks before the eruption, GNS Science detected a change in activity at Whakaari and revised the four-level alert scale for the volcano.

He informed the tour operators and the local press that the White Island was no longer on alert 1 (minimal volcanic activity), but was at level 2: "High volcanic upheaval, with the potential for volcanic eruptions."

The company that had the monopoly of the

did not cancel the visits because they had operated under level 2 on other occasions without anything having happened.

In fact, at the beginning of the month an unpublished recording was made public that shows the extent to which the risk included in the visits was accepted.

In the video, recovered from the mobile phone of one of the victims, one of the tour guides is heard saying: “The higher the level, the more risk of an eruption.

Level 3 is an eruption, ”he explains to tourists.

The judicial process to determine if these organizations and companies were negligent will begin with a preview on December 15.

Some of the survivors have already expressed their satisfaction at the announcement by Worksafe, as they feel that they were not properly informed of the level of danger they faced.

New Zealand is a famous tourist destination for its offer of nature activities and extreme sports, being the country where the first

(jumping from a bridge) was released in 1988. Seduced by the same adrenaline, every year about 10,000 tourists visited Whakaari, one of the few active volcanoes in the world open to mass tourism and where it was allowed to walk to the crater itself.

The

of the volcano were canceled indefinitely after the tragedy, and the Ministry of Labor announced the revision of the law governing the adventure activities, with a special focus on those that occur in natural environments risk.