A woman whose son was killed in a volcanic eruption in New Zealand a year ago said that as she stood crying, wailing and calling out his name on a beach soon afterward, a stranger came up to her and held her.
“To this day, I do not know who that lady was,” said Avey Woods during a televised service held yesterday in the town of Whakatane to mark the first anniversary of the tragedy.
“I hope she’s listening, because that just shows you what a community we are, and how powerful that felt that day,” Woods said.
Photo: AP
Woods’ 40-year-old son Hayden Marshall-Inman was a tour guide and among 22 people killed in the eruption on White Island on Dec. 9 last year. The island had been a popular tourist destination and 47 people were visiting when superheated steam spewed out from the crater floor. Most of those who survived suffered horrific burns.
Woods said that she continues to go to the beach each day to remember her son.
“No one can tell us how to grieve, because we grieve in our own time, and I believe that no one ever gets over the loss of a loved one,” Woods said.
Photo: AP
“You go through so many emotions. It’s shock, denial, tears, pain, anger, depression,” she added.
Many people now ask why tourists were ever allowed to visit the island, especially after experts monitoring seismic activity had raised the volcano’s alert level two weeks before the eruption.
New Zealand authorities last month filed safety breach charges against 10 organizations and three individuals in relation to the eruption. The charges brought by New Zealand’s WorkSafe agency are separate from an ongoing police investigation that could result in more charges, and the families of some of those killed and injured have also filed their own lawsuits.
Yet yesterday’s service was a time for those who lost loved ones or who were injured to pay tribute to the heroic rescue efforts by other tourists, who returned to the island in a boat to pick up the injured, as well as to police and hospital staff. People at the service stood in silence at 2:11pm, the moment the eruption took place.
Lauren and Matt Urey, who were injured in the eruption while visiting New Zealand on their honeymoon, spoke in a prerecorded video clip from their hometown of Richmond, Virginia.
“It is difficult to believe that a year has gone by already when it feels like this just happened yesterday,” Matt Urey said.
“While we have been forever changed by that day and will certainly never forget it, we are doing our best to move forward,” he said.
Lauren Urey said that from the shadow of the tragedy they had met amazing people, including the tourists who consoled them and provided emergency first aid on the boat trip back to Whakatane, and other survivors who have continued to be part of a support network as they recover.
Many of those killed and injured were tourists who had been traveling from Australia aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Of those killed, 14 were Australian, five were from the US, two were New Zealanders and one was German.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was among the dignitaries who attended the service.
“I want to send a message of aroha [love] and support to the survivors overseas, their families and those who lost loved ones, as well as those who are here with us in the room today. We share in your sorrow,” Ardern said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS