New Zealand: New volcano alert system 'could have warned of White Island eruption'

New Zealand scientists have invented a new volcano alert system that they say could have provided warning ahead of last year's White Island disaster. Twenty-one people died when the country's most active volcano, also called Whakaari, suddenly erupted last December with tourists on it. The new system uses machine learning algorithms to analyse real-time data to predict future eruptions. The research was publish in the journal Nature last week. One of the scientists involved in the project, Shane Cronin from the University of Auckland, told the BBC the current system had been "too slow to provide warnings for people [on] the island." "The current [alert system] collects data in real-time but what tends to happen is that this information gets assessed by a panel and they have an expert process... this all takes a while," he said.