First drone footage from Whakaari / White Island since the 2019 disaster

First images of Whakaari / White Island since the Dec 9 2019 disaster.
Filmmaker Geoff Mackley sent a drone into the sky to video the volcano – the first close-up images since the December 9 eruption.
The land and sea were quiet.
The plume of steam doubled the height of the volcano, but it was pure white. There was none of the ominous black ash that barrelled out the day Whakaari/White Island killed 21 people.
On a boat near the shoreline, filmmaker Geoff Mackley was close enough to smell the sulphur. But there was no heat coming off the island, just a yellow chemical slick swirling into the ocean.
Mackley sent a drone into the cloudless sky to video the volcano – the first close-up images since the December 9 eruption. He had to negotiate permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to enter the no-fly zone.
Through the screen of the drone, he saw the mud, ash and debris that blanketed the area where tourists toured the crater rim. The place where Defence Force body recovery staff talked of wading through boiling, knee-deep acidic sludge.
But what Mackley saw was not a scene of utter destruction – to the untrained eye, it's not obvious an eruption has taken place. It’s covered its tracks, and those that used to criss-cross its surface.
“It’s not like it was before, where there was clearly defined tracks. They’ve been totally obliterated. It’s like no-one has ever been there. So yeah, it's pretty eerie.”
The one clear clue was the damaged helicopter with its broken blade, standing as it has since the force of the blast at 2.11pm blew it off its landing pad.
The landscape was greyer than Mackley remembered, bleached of the pinks and yellows of tourist photos. He's been there several times, but the last visit was in 2013, to see the mud fountains.
An adrenaline junky, his website calls him “filmmaker, explorer, idiot". He's videoed dozens of volcanoes around the world, since climbing Mt Ruapehu during the 1995 eruption.
“I call it visual heroin – once you've tried it once, you're going to keep coming back, even though it might cause harm.”
As he watched the mountain quietly puffing steam, he thought about the tragedy that happened there.
“I wasn’t nervous. Obviously I know that it can blow up without warning at any time. It’s Russian roulette. Something’s not highly likely to happen today, but if you were going out there every day, something will happen eventually.
“The volcano doesn't care what we're doing up top, it will do what it wants to do. It's really just unfortunate that it happened when it did. There were 20 other hours in each day when it could have happened when there was no-one there, and all night.
“You obviously thought about what went on out there and how terrible it would have been.”
Almost nine months on from the eruption, no-one has stepped foot on the volcano.
GNS scientists have been tracking its activity with gas flights monitoring the vent and ground temperature and making observations from helicopters. The signs point to a slow cooling and calming.
In January, tremors triggered minor explosions.
In May, an increase in carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide – key indicators of volcanic unrest – suggested new magma could have pushed close to the crater surface. Lava lobes surrounded by hot gases generated a glow visible on night vision cameras.
But on June 16, the alert level was dropped to level 1, based on the “slowly decreasing level of volcanic activity”. While some molten rock remained about 1km below the surface and the gas vents remained hot, at about 450degC, gas levels had dropped.
“The volcano is behaving like it normally does,” Mackley says.
Text : from Stuff.co.nz
Royalty free music : Drive from Ross Bugden

Ultimate Volcano Expeditions can arrange day trips to White island (remaining on a boat at all times) with big game fishing included.

Видео First drone footage from Whakaari / White Island since the 2019 disaster канала geoffmackley