New Zealand Police issue a statement confirming a sixth person has died following the eruption on White Island.
Police said they had launched a probe into the deaths on White Island but clarified it was not a criminal investigation.
New Zealand's geological hazards agency GeoNet raised the alert level for the volcano in November because of an increase in volcanic activity.Yet daily tours bring more than 10,000 visitors each year to the privately owned island, marketed as"the world's most accessible active marine volcano". A crater rim camera owned and operated by GeoNet showed one group of people walking away from the rim inside the crater just a minute before the explosion.
"It's now clear that there were two groups on the island — those who were able to be evacuated and those who were close to the eruption," Ms Ardern said at a morning news conference in Whakatane, a town on the mainland's east coast, about 50km from White Island.
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