Death Plunge

Volcano Still "In Bounds" After Death Plunge

From AAP-Reuter and E. Frank Lyn in Rabaul.

The Town Advisory Council of Kokopo, near Rabaul, has de cided not to recommend a ban on

climbing Matupit Volcano.

BUT it will ask the P-NG Administration to obtain cliff climbing equipment to facilitate rescues and to train personnel in its use.

The Kokopo Council made these decisions at a meeting in mid- November after John Hamilton, a Sydney accountant who had been working in Rabaul for four months, fell to his death in one of Matupit’s craters on November 1.

The climbing of Matupit is a popular tourist attraction in Rabaul, and Father K. English, a member of the Kokopo Council, said a ban on climbing it would “take away the spirit of adventure”.

Taking Photographs

Hamilton’s death in Matupit was the first since 1937 when a photo grapher was blown up while standing on the crater’s rim. That was during the volcano’s last disastrous eruption, although it erupted to a lesser degree in the early years of World War 11.

Hamilton, who was with two friends, Miss Nicky Green and Bob Gregor, was also taking photographs before he was killed.

It secerns that he had moved slightly off the beaten track that follows the crater rim and began sliding in the loose volcanic shale that falls sharply away from each side of the foot-wide track.

He slid 20 ft over the shale, hit a rocky outcrop and bounced 15 ft into space, then he plunged 50 ft down to the rock-strewn base of the 1937 crater.

While Miss Green scrambled down the outer side of the volcano to raise the alarm, a 15-year-old high-schoolboy, Kevin Quick, and a native companion, who had seen Hamilton fall, went down a rope used by vulcanologists to the sricken man’s aid.

Helped

Quick applied a rough tourniquet to Hamilton’s injuries, and later had some palm fronds brought down from the outer side of the volcano to shade Hamilton from the fierce sun. The temperature inside was probably more than 110 degrees.

Later, a Rabaul insurance man, Mr. Peter Hiley, climbed down with a water bottle and vacuum flask.

Four hours after Hamilton fell a police rescue party got into the crater, gave Hamilton morphia, and then tried to get him out on an ambulance-type stretcher while the sun blazed down on them unmerci fully, the sulphur fumes sickened them, and hundreds of ants swarmed over their sweat-soaked legs and arms.

Helped by Matupit villagers, they tried 15 times to get the stretcher

out of the crater, but each time caught on a rock ledge.

Hamilton died at 2.30 p.m., ab six hours after his fall, and a furt two hours passed before it was j sible to get his body out.

A rescue party doctor said a i liminary examination showed t Hamilton had died of loss of bio shock and exposure.

A few days later, Senior Inspec Fred Towner who had led the res party, called a conference of pol vulcanologists and Health Dep ment officials to work out a plan deal with future cliff accide around Rabaul.

Meanwhile, attempts were be made to get official recognition young Kevin Quick. He was the 1 one into the crater and he sp more than six hours in there bef coming out with the last of rescue party.

Rabaul's active Matupit volcano, scene of a tragedy in November.