“These “unnamed” groups will now face charges and fines in retrospect and all because those who got caught in the eruption, or their families, want to sue the taxpayer.”
I understand the ‘buyer beware’ concept, and I usually support it, but we are pretty good at predicting eruptions - although not perfect.
In this case, the government, the cruise line, and the excursion company had the information that the volcano was at its highest risk of blowing. The passengers, however, did not - they had no clue as to risk. Had they been informed, I’m sure some would have gone anyway (after all, what you don’t see can’t hurt you) - but others wouldn’t have and most of the liability would have fallen on the passengers for making the decision to go. On top of that, after it blows, a private company did the helicopter rescues (at their own expense), and the government wouldn’t even attempt going there...definitely causing unnecessary loss of lives. It was a horrible situation (obviously).
Anyway, lots of good videos on this!
This case reminds me of the Italian scientists who were sued by the Government of Italy for not forecasting an eruption. All seismically active volcano’s are potentially dangerous, but forecasting eruptions is very difficult and while I agree that IF these tour groups were warned about escalating tremors, etc., they should have made that clear, many people do visit dangerous places as a kind of thrill, sort of like “war tourism”.