August 01, 2022
Safety hot topic as Whakarewarewa shocks
The chair of New Zealand Māori Tourism says an incident at Whakarewarewa yesterday in which a tourist was burned when a sinkhole opened in the pavement highlights the importance of safety procedures in Aotearoa’s often challenging landscape.
Dale Stephens says Māori Tourism is doing what it can to support the Australian woman and her husband, as well as the first responders from the thermal village.
It’s now up to WorkSafe to determine what happened, and he’s not jumping to conclusions about whether the cause of the collapse was geothermal or that the rain had saturated the area.
“We’ve all been down and around that area and know what a beautiful area it is but we also know that (geologically) there is potential concern from time to time so we need to look at all those various factors, we need to look at how it was managed on the day, how it is regularly monitored throughout the year because these are important things and our people’s safety is paramount,” Mr Stephens says.