I found some interesting current info about Raoul Island which is 70 miles West of the epicenter of this quake. In short, it's a volcanic island, New Zealand Dept. of Conservation oversees it and from photos it is incredibly beautiful. :-)
The Age.com
Eruption survivors visit Raoul Island
March 22, 2006 - 5:50PM
The five surviving Raoul Island Department of Conservation (DOC) staff have visited the crater where their colleague, Mark Kearney, went missing after a volcanic eruption there last Friday.
The quintet, accompanied by volcanologists from Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS), walked to Mount Moumouaki to view the eruption site and Green Lake on Wednesday morning.
Mr Kearney was taking the temperature of the crater lake when the eruption occurred and is presumed to have died.
DOC Warkworth area manager Rolien Elliot said Mr Kearney's five colleagues - Jim Livingstone, Morgan Cox, Melanie Nelson, Evan Ward and Lynda McGrory-Ward - wanted to see the scene for themselves.
"They needed to see first-hand the effects of the eruption and the changes to the crater and Green Lake, which is still rising," Ms Elliot said.
Photos released by DOC show the level of the lake has risen 8-10m since Friday. It has risen about 2m since Tuesday.
"There's a huge amount of hot water sitting in the lake," DOC spokeswoman Liz Maire told NZPA.
The DOC staff, along with police, volcanologists and searchers, arrived on Tuesday morning at Raoul Island, in the Kermadec Islands about 800km northeast of New Zealand, partly to look for Mr Kearney.
A recovery team got within 1.5km of the lake but could not go any further because it was too dangerous.
The Braveheart is expected to leave the island on Friday at the earliest. Ms Elliot said DOC would decide later in the week whether any of its staff would remain on the island.
She said the hostel the staff were based at had suffered no damage. Its generators, water and waste systems were working normally.
GNS volcanologist Brad Scott said the hostel area was very rarely touched by eruptions on the island.
"In the last 3600 years there have been 15 eruptions on Raoul and only on three occasions were they big enough to produce ash that has reached the site of the hostel."
Meanwhile, the tourist expedition ship Spirit of Enderby will leave Raoul Island on Wednesday without its passengers having landed on the island.
The passengers and crew had their permission to land revoked following the eruption and instead had to do with landing on nearby Meyer Island, close to the coast of Raoul Island, to watch seabirds.
The Age: Eruption survivors visit Raoul Island
Radio New Zealand's story: DOC searchers on Raoul Island to head home
"The Kermadec Islands are New Zealand’s most remote Conservation Area. They have never been connected to mainland New Zealand."
From NZ Seabirds.com (with photos) The Kermadecs
Photo of 21 November 1964 eruption on Raoul, Kermadec Volcano
Photo from Underwater Australasia Underwater.com
Bob Sutton, Researcher's Raoul Island Photos