9 Jan 2020

One month on, Whakaari visitors still requiring round-the-clock medical care

From Five O'clock Report, 5:22 pm on 9 January 2020

One month on, many of the people who were on Whakaari /White Island at the time of the fatal eruption are still requiring round-the-clock medical care. The explosion on December 9th claimed 17 lives - the bodies of tour guide Hayden Marshall Inman and Australian teenager Winona Langford are yet to be recovered, after the police called off their search on Christmas Eve. Twenty five people are still being treated in hospitals here and in Australia, six with critical injuries. The chair of Ngati Awa holdings which owns White Island Tours, Paul Quinn, visited those at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital today. Mr Quinn told our reporter Matthew Theunissen he spent time with a relative of American tourist Pratap Singh, whose wife, Mayuri, died in the eruption, and the parents of tour guide Jake Milbank - who underwent yet another operation today.