At least one person has died and an undetermined number of people remain undetected after the eruption on Monday of the Whakaari volcano, on an uninhabited island visited by tourists to the northeast of New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reported.

Around 100 visitors were in the area at the time of the explosion , the president said during an appearance with the media in which she avoided specifying a possible number of injuries.

"We believe that about 100 people were on the island, the trail of some of them was lost ," he told reporters in Wellington, shortly after the eruption, which took place in the early afternoon.

The eruption occurred early in the afternoon abruptly expelling rocks and a large cloud of ash on the island of Whakaari, also known as White Island and located 48 kilometers east of the North Island.

"The evacuation operation is in process and at an early stage," Ardern said.

According to data from the medical organization St John, the eruption would have left about twenty people injured , some seriously, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reports.

"We expect burns , respiratory problems , head injuries , bone fractures due to the impact of rocks," among other injuries, St John's director of operations, Norma Lane, told Newstalk ZB.

Emergency teams, supported by several helicopters, work to evacuate an unspecified number of those affected , some of whom were near the crater minutes before the eruption, according to images from a tracking camera installed in the area.

Live images of the volcano showed more than half a dozen people walking along the edge of the crater at 14.10 (1.10 GMT), before the cameras turned off after a few minutes.

The National Emergency Response Agency issued an alert to possible new eruptions or moderate seismic activity.

The authorities have established a security perimeter around the island and the immediate cancellation of all excursions, including tourist boats.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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