A Sydney girl is one of the two people still missing following last week’s volcano eruption on White Island, New Zealand Police have confirmed.
The bodies of Winona Jane Langford, 17, of North Willoughby, and New Zealand tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, 40, are yet to be recovered by authorities.
Winona’s parents Anthony Langford, 51, and Kristine Langford, 45, have been confirmed dead while her brother Jesse, 19, is recovering in hospital.
Wild weather on Tuesday forced NZ police to abandon their search for the bodies at White Island, also known as Whakaari, for the second straight day.
A major retrieval operation ongoing in the wake of the December 9 eruption has already taken six bodies off the island.
But the mission is now on hold as major gusts and isolated showers lash the Bay of Plenty off Whakatane on NZ’s North Island.
An Eagle helicopter left the mainland at dawn to continue searching, only to be forced to return to shore.
A water-based search has been ruled out due to forecast storms.
NZ Police on Tuesday also released the names of three more Australians who have been officially identified.
They are Coffs Harbour man Richard Elzer, 32, Sydney-based US citizen Barbara Hollander, 49, and Brisbane woman Julie Richards, 47.
Some 47 people were on the island when the active volcano blew ash, hot liquid and steam almost three metres into the sky.
There were 28 Australians, including four permanent residents, in the group.
The Australian death toll currently stands at 16. This includes Winona who’s presumed dead and an Australian man who died in a Sydney hospital on Sunday and whose family asked he not be named.
Another 12 people are being treated in Australian hospitals after being repatriated with severe burns.
The names of the dead include Jessica Richards, 20, from Brisbane; Coffs Harbour residents Jason Griffiths, 33 and Karla Mathews, 32; US citizen and permanent resident Martin Hollander, 48 and his sons Matthew, 13, and Berend, 16; Adelaide schoolgirl Zoe Hosking, 15 and her stepfather Gavin Dallow, 53; and Melbourne woman Krystal Browitt, 21.
-AAP
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