Photograph: Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust/EPA
An American couple who were badly burned when Whakaari/White Island erupted in December 2019, killing 22 of the 47 people in its crater, told a New Zealand court that neither their guides nor anyone else involved in their trip to the crater told them that such an event was likely – or even possible. Information about the dangers they faced on the island volcano was minimal, they said, and safety protections lax.
Evidence from Matthew Urey, 40, and Lauren Urey, 36, opened the prosecution’s case in the Auckland district court on Wednesday, beginning a lengthy trial for the island’s owners and other tourism companies involved in the ill-fated trip.
The six individuals and entities have pleaded not guilty to charges of failures of health and safety law brought by New Zealand’s labour inspectorate, after the most extensive investigation in the agency’s history.
The couple were honeymooning on a Royal Caribbean cruise and had booked their excursion to Whakaari/White Island, off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island, through the same company months earlier. While the brochure advertised the site as the country’s most active volcano, Matt Urey said, he assumed it was safe. The only precautions listed were a requirement to wear closed-toe shoes and a warning that those with mobility issues or in wheelchairs should not subscribe.
He would “absolutely not” have booked the trip if he had known there was a chance Whakaari would erupt, Urey recounted in a video statement played for the court on Wednesday.
“We were on our honeymoon, we were just looking to relax,” he said. “We weren’t looking for thrills.”
In their statements and follow-up questions from lawyers, Urey and his wife – who returned to New Zealand from Richmond, Virginia, to give evidence – said there was no further safety information offered by any party before they arrived on the island.
They only learned that the volcano’s alert level had been lifted from one to two when Lauren Urey – nervous about the trip – asked a guide about the chances of an eruption. By then, the group was already on the island. The couple said they were not told what such a risk rating signified.
The guide reassured them, Lauren Urey said, that visitors to the island would receive a 10-minute warning of any volcanic activity.
The tourists said they had been issued with hard hats and “optional” respirator masks, but no other safety gear. The only other instruction the two guides issued, the couple added, was to keep to the path as they walked and not to rush ahead or fall behind the group.
There was no 10-minute warning of the eruption, the Ureys told the court. Instead, another tourist pointed at the plume of smoke that suddenly appeared. Then came the urging from their guide to “run”, before “chaos” broke out, Matt Urey said.
Lauren Urey described clutching her husband’s hand as they hunkered behind a boulder while the air filled with ash, rocks and screaming.
“I thought for sure that we were going to die, and I wanted him to know that I loved him,” she said. “My respirator was falling off, so at that point it was hard for me to breathe. I was gasping for air. I thought it was any second before I was going to die.”
The couple recounted a terrible descent to the island’s wharf, both of them stumbling and in pain. Matt Urey, who was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, said his bare limbs bore the worst of his injuries. He told the court the tour operators should have required customers wear long sleeves and trousers.
Medical attention by another tourist on the 1.5-hour boat trip from the island to shore had saved her life as she drifted in and out of consciousness, Lauren Urey said.
Both are still recovering from their burns. Lauren Urey said she had faced surgeries about once a month since the eruption, and the pair had been forced to delay starting a family.
Kirsty McDonald, the prosecutor, told the court on Tuesday that the island’s owners – Andrew, James and Peter Buttle – never bothered to know the risks, had no health and safety procedures in place, and attempted to divert responsibility to the tour operators who paid them license fees and commissions.
Counsel for the Buttles chose not to question Matt and Lauren Urey on Wednesday. David Neutze, a lawyer representing ID Tours – a booking agency that liaised between international and domestic tour operators – questioned the couple’s assumptions about the island’s safety, and asked Lauren Urey to elaborate on the misgivings she said she had felt before the trip.
She responded that her anxiety about visiting a volcano was a result of post-traumatic stress disorder she already suffered, and had not been prompted by any specific safety information about Whakaari/White Island.
In March, ID Tours failed in a bid to have the charges against the company dismissed. It said its role in the tourism “supply chain” did not extend to what happened on the island, a claim the judge rejected.
Several other companies involved in facilitating the trip to Whakaari have already admitted to charges against them. They will be sentenced after the current trial, which is expected to take four months.
If convicted, the organisations face maximum fines of NZ$1.5m ($930,000/£720,000) or NZ$300,000 for individuals.
