I visited White Island / Whakaari when I was in New Zealand this March

[lovingboth]

Although it took a surprisingly long time to be recognised as such historically, it is very definitely an active volcano: the day I went, the green acidic crater lake was steaming enough that I didn't even bother to try to to get close enough to see it as even with the supplied gas masks, it was stinging my nose and throat and it turned out that you couldn't actually see the lake anyway.

The place has some monitoring stations looking at things like the ground rising and part of the tour is looking at some of them. But normally, it's the sea condition that means you can't go by boat, and I wonder if the weather they've been having recently - lots of storms - meant that there was commercial pressure to have the trips despite the warnings of increased activity since July.*

You also see the remains of the sulphur mining station that was wiped out 105 years ago - the only survivor was the cat - so this isn't the first time the volcano has killed people.

Even somewhere like New Zealand that has several active volcanos, that you're visiting the most active of them is its appeal...

* Some of the coverage here has made it sound like the warnings were very recent, but it's been months since the alert level changed

Comments

[judiff]

So like would you still have gone if it had veen on the like last-week level of warning?

[lovingboth]

I wouldn't have gone on the day they went, but that's because of the sea state. There were two things I very much wanted to do in the nine or so days I had free there, and both involved lots of checking of weather forecasts before I picked the day I actually did them.

A calmer sea and increased activity... having seen the display on volcanoes in Auckland's main museum, quite possibly not. As was shown, if does erupt while you are on the island, you are in serious trouble.