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Source: ONE News -
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Just two years ago police warned it was only a matter of time before the south Westland glaciers claimed a life and they say the deaths of two Australian brothers is a shocking reminder of the need to heed warning signs.
The tourists were killed when they were crushed under a hundred tons of falling ice at the face of Fox Glacier on Thursday afternoon.
One body has been recovered, but police say it has been too dangerous to retrieve the other.
The pair, in their early 20s, ignored signs and crossed safety barriers to get right up to the ice and take photographs.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) has been warning visitors to start heading warning signs for years.
Both the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers are advancing and in places have overhanging terminal faces. They are highly active and extremely dangerous with continual and unpredictable ice and rock falls.
Constable Tony LeSueur says barriers are placed to give visitors the best views possible, while keeping them safe.
Retired glacier guide Mike Browne says DOC has done a good job in warning of the dangers at the glacier face. But he says even though the signs are good and some have symbols for people who can't speak English, they still get ignored.
Browne says he has seen many near misses in the past, but Thursday's deaths are the first that he knows of from falling ice at Fox Glacier.
DOC area manager Jo Macpherson says as soon as one person crosses a sign or a barrier people will follow.
"The thing is, people shouldn't just follow," says Macpherson.
In 2007, the Department of Conservation said that almost a third of the 600,000 visitors to the West Coast glaciers ignore warning sings and enter danger zones.
"They're there for a very real reason...the signage clearly expresses what the potential risks are but we unfortunately see people take matters into their own hands and choose to go past that for a closer look," says Rob Jewell-Fox from Fox Glacier Guiding.
Conservation Minister Tim Groser says they don't want to keep people out of the area.
"There is really a sense of personal responsibility on the part of people entering into our wild and rugged land," he says.
In February 2007 a tourist standing beside an ice cave at the terminal face of the Franz Josef Glacier was injured when the roof collapsed. He had walked past signs warning of the danger of falling ice.
Two years earlier in March 2005, an English tourist died when he fell into a crevasse during an ice-climbing tour and in August 2003, mountaineer William Macqueen died at Fox Glacier when a snowbridge collapsed below him.
In earlier incidents, a man was killed after falling metres down a Fox Glacier crevasse in April 2002 and two years before that a glacial icefall crushed a Thai tourist, leaving her severely injured.
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