I don’t recall hearing anything about a Sentinel Island, whereabouts is it?
Novelty Bobble: Read these two Straight Dope threads:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=865944
This was my first reaction ,too.
I have zero knowledge of this specific volcano.
But it seems to me that the relevant issue is how often it has erupted or spewed poisonous gas or whatever during the past few years.(and therefor what are the chances of it happening again during the 90 minutes that I as a tourist would be there.)
And I haven’t seen any mention of this in the headlines.
“The friendly locals will shower you with handcrafted souvenirs!”
When my son was 8, the two of us did a cruise to Alaska. While in Alaska we did an excursion that was fraught with danger, going out in a huge canoe to the face of a glacier. Everyone wore immersion suits***** designed to keep you alive long enough for rescue, but man, dip a hand in the water and it was insta-numb. I signed a stack of paperwork prior to the experience.
Had the glacier calved while we were exploring, we’d have been killed and folks back home would have talked about crazy risk taking. Looking back, I was possibly a bad dad putting my kid in that situation, but he still tells people about the experience twenty years later.
*****When we arrived at the site the trip leader discovered we were one suit short. There was discussion about one person not going and how to choose who that would be. In the end, the excursion leader just took the risk, wearing just running shorts and a t-shirt.
Like volcanoes, glacier calving events are on a scale that is difficult for people to comprehend and happen with an infrequency that makes the risk difficult to assess. It’s worth noting that you don’t have to be in a kayak at the edge of the ice to be at risk. These folks were in a tour boat at a distance most folks would think is safe. Guess again:
CNN is reporting that New Zealand has ordered more than 1290 square feet of skin for the burn victims. Buffalo Bills’ “fabric” shop is said to be thrilled with the order…
Bra-VO! You are a marketing genius!
Of all the stupid touristy things to do, this has to be near the top!
Even with switching seats (you change positions halfway thru the flight), less than half of the passengers will end up with a window seat for any part of this excursion. :smack:
This is a 12-hr flight on a wide-body plane (looks like a B747). One can specifically pay for a middle seat, including in business class. Do you know what kind of view you’re (not) going to get in a middle section of a wide-body plane? You can also pay for an obstructed view (over wing) seat as a category. You can also get a B/C or I/J seat (with the switch). Anyone sitting in one of those seats would get a lovely view of the back of my head as I look out the window with my nose pressed to the glass. Even if you’re sharing with your partner next to you; one doesn’t get to see so much ground below you from a B/J seat in a wide-body as you’re just too far back from the small window.
But “Expert Antarctic expeditioners are onboard to talk on the polar environment and its history while video screenings depict life on the ground.” Or I’m sure I could, you know, YouTube similar videos for free & not waste an entire, long day stuffed into not enough leg room.
Oh wow, that does sound like a stupid trip. I can’t stand being stuffed in the middle row of a 747 even when the goal is the get someplace, and it’s not all about the view.
Yeah, walking across the crater floor was one of the highlights of my trip. It’s a weird and engaging experience. We also spent some time exploring a lava tube, knowing that if there happened to be an earthquake while we were there, we would be crushed underground.
The news does say that there were specific warnings about this volcano, though. I wonder how widely publicized that was, and whether these tourists knew about it.
The information available to us in 2003 was pretty specific and pulled no punches but then I believe there was quite a bit of activity there in the recent past so it may well have been fresh in the memory, rather like if we were to visit in 18 months time the warnings would be pretty clear.
If all has been quiet in the last few years these things have a habit of drifting out of consciousness.
The papers here in Aus. are running reports that say “We were given a ton a paperwork to sign, telling us it was dangerous. Nowhere did it say You might be killed”
What kind of non-killy danger did they expect from a “dangerous volcano”??
I know it is a tragic situation but for this specific point I think that only a Mitchell and Webb sketch will do
We were on White Island 2 years ago… It was relatively underwhelming. I don’t remember the paperwork being particularly alarming. Far better than the island was the super-pod of dolphin we were in on the ride home! I’m surprised the tour operators didn’t clue in on the increased activity announcement.
There were attempts made to mine sulfur on the island at various times and there are the remains of heavy equipment and shacks. Talk about a dream job.
The waivers for scuba diving and heli-skiing tend to be very blunt: you’re probably going to die if you do this and it won’t be our fault. Haven’t yet, however.
This seems incredible to me, given that I’ve signed numerous parental permission forms for horse-riding and rock climbing which clearly state “by the way, it is possible that your child might die doing this”
Playing in volcanoes is less dangerous than getting on a horse? :dubious: Or they just had a Failure to Read problem?
Or maybe they figured people would understand that “dangerous active volcano” implies “possibility of eruption while you’re there and you might not survive that”?
Probably it is less dangerous. Over ten thousand visitors a year for decades and no serious injuries or deaths until now. So risk of death a few per hundred thousand visitors and up until this week it was a rate of zero.
Skiing, rock climbing, scuba diving, triathloning … people do things knowing there are small but real risks of death or serious injury.
Massive burns are a much more painful consequence than those. Some might even prefer to die than go through the several months of suffering while the burns heal (and perhaps a lifetime of bad lungs from the volcano dust).
A couple interviews with the helicopter pilots rescuing people: