Just 30 minutes before the White Island volcano in New Zealand erupted in a deadly explosion, a San Francisco tourist and his family stood on the edge of the crater, watching — and videotaping — the steam smolder and swirl.
They were back aboard their tour boat just as the volcano blew, managing to escape the island. Within minutes, however, the crew of the White Island Tour company was sending dinghies back to pick up stranded tourists still on the beach.
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In a series of tweets and videos, Michael Schade, a tech worker at the internet infrastructure company Stripe, described the harrowing ordeal that claimed at least five lives Monday and left at least eight people missing.
“Tending to people our boat rescued was indescribable,” Schade wrote, capturing on video billowing gray smoke and debris obscuring the island, hurtling into the sky and towards the boat.
“No, no, no no,” one man’s voice aboard the boat is heard in the background of the video.
Schade’s mother tended to a woman in critical condition, he wrote on Twitter, “but seemed strong by the end.”
His four videos and half dozen photos taken from the boat off shore show the ghostly aftermath — a dozen tourists huddling on a rock jetting into the ocean waiting to be rescued, a grounded helicopter perched at an odd angle, covered in gray ash.
Schade, an amateur photographer, was taking photos and video within two minutes of the eruption.
The BBC reported the missing and injured included tourists from Australia, China, Malaysia, the United States and New Zealand. More than 30 people were being treated after the blast at hospitals.
“My thoughts with the families of those currently unaccounted for, the people recovering now, and especially the rescue workers,” he wrote.
Checked photo timestamps. Last photo from me standing on the land was 13:49; this first photo of the eruption was 14:12, about a minute or two into the eruption. pic.twitter.com/hyqQuO4vNq
— Michael Schade (@sch) December 9, 2019
