KEY POINTS:
Fox Glacier made grim viewing yesterday for tourists, search and rescue volunteers and media as the enormity of the ice fall that killed Australians Ashish Miranda, 24, and his brother Akshay, 22, on Thursday sank in.
The garage-sized slabs of ice in the Fox River were dwarfed by
the massive glacier that attracts more than 600,000 tourists a year. Gargantuan-sized river rocks and heavy rain added to the desolate and gloomy atmosphere.
"There is not much worse than this scenario," Hokitika-based Department of Conservation (DoC) media spokesman Ian Gill said.
DoC's barrier ropes and warning signs are usually placed about 40m from the toe of the glacier but yesterday they had been moved hundreds of metres away to the top of a rise above the river.
A conservation officer had also been stationed part-way along the short track leading to the glacier to warn people not to go beyond the ropes.
Guided parties were still entering the danger zone under the watchful eye of their leaders but none was taken near where search and rescue volunteers were accompanying Ronnie Miranda, the dead men's father, and another male family member back to the scene of the accident.
From the viewpoint, the safety-vested people at the glacier's toe were tiny little dots in a daunting landscape.
The glacier ice is always moving and DoC tries to make people aware of the dangers and advocates self-responsibility, despite the high numbers who ignore the warnings.
Even so, ice-fall accidents have been rare, with one fatality in the early 1980s and another man injured in 2007.
DoC's Westland area manager Jo Macpherson said yesterday that the accident was "incredibly unfortunate".
She was now reviewing hazard procedures at the glacier, something that happened each year and after incidents. She was "confident" DoC's processes were robust.
The ice fall that killed the Miranda brothers was large but fell just 5m or 6m from the bottom of a 20m-high face.
It was witnessed by several tourists, including the brothers' parents, Ronnie and Winnie Miranda, who were on holiday together. However, they did not initially realise their only sons were underneath it.
Constable Paul Gurney, of Franz Josef, said yesterday that the parents were devastated and did not want to talk to the media.
They were being supported in Fox Glacier by cousins from Auckland and had a large and extended family network in Australia and India, he said.
Police will decide today what to do to retrieve the body of Akshay.
It was raining heavily and too dangerous to go into the site yesterday. It is thought the heavy rain may wash some of the ice away and reveal the body.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES