New Zealand police have launched an investigation into the eruption of the White Island volcano, as further details emerged of the scale of the disaster in which at least six people died and a further eight are feared to have perished.

“I would strongly suggest that there is no one that has survived on the island,” the New Zealand police deputy commissioner, John Tims, said in Wellington.
Police said 47 people were on the uninhabited island at the time of the eruption – 24 from Australia, nine from the United States, five from New Zealand, four from Germany, two each from China and the UK and one from Malaysia.