A dramatic and risky recovery effort to bring home the bodies of those killed on Whakaari White Island has found six people, but two remain missing.
Specialised NZ Defence Force teams scoured the island for four hours on Friday morning.
At least one of the two missing bodies is expected to be in the sea, following a sighting earlier in the week, and an attempt by police to retrieve them.
Conditions made that impossible, and they have yet to be located again.
Police say they are unsure of the location of the other one, but searches in the sea and from the sky are underway as they work to track them down.
The six bodies which have been located are being flown to Auckland for autopsies.
The risks on the island were real - the Defence Force says the advice given to them by GNS was that there was a six percent chance in any three-hour period that the volcano may erupt.
Police have released a satellite photo showing where the recovery team came ashore at the jetty, before walking in hazmat gear to protect them from the toxic fumes along a path to the east of Whakaari - making their way to the top north-eastern side of the crater.
At that point three locations are marked with red and white cross. One body was found at the first marker, two at the second and three at the marker further away.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush has been with some of the relatives of the dead on Friday.
He tells Lisa Owen the families do not yet know the identities of the six bodies that have been recovered.
