A New Zealand military team recovered six bodies on Friday from the volcanic island that fatally erupted earlier this week, in a high risk operation watched by dozens of grieving family members waiting on the mainland.
An eight-person bomb disposal squad was helicoptered in and spent four hours on White Island, which experts have said still has a 50-60% chance of another eruption in the coming hours.
Six of the eight bodies on the island were successfully retrieved and taken to a naval patrol vessel for transfer to the mainland for disaster victim identification, New Zealand police said.
The team was unable to recover the remaining two bodies as the cumbersome protective equipment they needed to wear slowed down the tricky operation.
