On December 9, 2019, day trippers touring White Island, an active volcano in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty, were caught in an eruption that killed 22 people and left 26 more with severe burns and injuries. This episode of the Countdown to Disaster series reconstructs the minutes before and after the 2:11 p.m. blast using accounts from survivors, some interviewed only after leaving hospital, along with the boat crews and helicopter pilots who flew in through ash and toxic gas to pull people out. Volcanologists who had monitored White Island for years explain the seismic and gas readings recorded in the days before the eruption, and the film lays out why a tour was still running on the island despite a raised alert level. The result is less a portrait of an unpredictable act of nature than a timeline of decisions, warnings, and missed signals, told by the people who lived through the eruption and the scientists who had been watching the mountain all along.