Atlanta Couple Burned, Recovering In New Zealand Volcano Eruption

ATLANTA, GA — An Atlanta couple are confirmed as among the tourists injured during last Monday's volcanic eruption in New Zealand, according to reports.

Pratap and Mayuri Singh were injured in the eruption; both suffered burns, and were struggling but stable in Middlemore Hospital in South Auckland, New Zealand, a newspaper there reported Saturday.

"It was a terrible incident, so you can imagine what has happened to them," Jeet Suchdev, from the Bhartiya Samaj Charitable Trust, told the New Zealand Herald. "They are being kept in isolation so they don't get an infection."

Family members had arrived to help the couple, joining New Zealand-based family and friends, the paper said.

"They are feeling so low that they are hardly talking," Suchdev said. "It was a really unexpected thing; it's making their lives terrible. They are just so frustrated and low in morale."

Special medical teams were heading to New Zealand from Australia, Britain and the United States. Skin banks were also sending tissue to New Zealand hospitals to use for grafts, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The couple are believed to have been passengers on the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. They may have been on a shore excursion to White Island at the time of the eruption. New Zealand police on Saturday night said the official death toll was 15.

Authorities said a military team landed on the island Friday to retrieve the bodies of victims despite the risk of another eruption, The Associated Press reported.

At the time of the deadly volcanic explosion, 47 tourists and their guides were on the island. Six bodies of those killed in the incident were removed from the island Friday by teams wearing hazmat suits, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Two bodies are still missing; one was spotted Tuesday in the waters off the island.

Medical staff in New Zealand said 28 people remained hospitalized, with 11 of them in critical condition, the New Zealand Herald reported. Dr. Peter Watson, a chief medical officer, told reporters Thursday hospital that staff expected to need an additional 1,300 square feet of skin to provide grafts for severely burned patients, the AP reported.