Hope fades for eight missing after New Zealand volcanic island erupts

'A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN'

'Whakaari', as it is known in the Maori language, is New Zealand's most-active cone volcano, built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years, according to GeoNet.

About 70 percent of the island is under the sea, making the massive volcanic structure the largest in New Zealand.

Ray Cas, a professor emeritus at Monash University, said the island "has been a disaster waiting to happen for many years".

"Having visited it twice, I have always felt that it was too dangerous to allow the daily tour groups that visit the uninhabited island volcano by boat and helicopter," Cas said in comments published by the Australian Science Media Centre.

GeoNet raised the alert level for the volcano in November because of an increase in volcanic activity. The volcano's last fatal eruption was in 1914, when it killed 12 sulphur miners.

There was a short-lived eruption in April 2016.

Yet daily tours bring more than 10,000 visitors to the volcano every year. One from a 16-deck cruise liner, Ovation of the Seas, was there at the time.

Royal Caribbean confirmed late on Monday that several passengers from the ship were on a day trip to the island but did not provide further information.

Janet Urey, 61, a nurse from Richmond, Virginia, said her son Matthew, 36, was injured in the eruption while on honeymoon.

"The phone rang at midnight. Then I heard a voicemail come on. It was my son. He said, 'Mom ... this is not a joke. A volcano erupted while we were on the island. We're at the hospital with severe burns.'"

Urey said she was frustrated by the lack of information from the cruise ship he was on and from authorities.

"I have not heard a word from the cruise people," she said.

Reuters