![]() ![]() “Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent,” he wrote, adding in a later post: “Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.” Faka’iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore. ![]() ![]() On Tonga, which is home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings. local time, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik. All internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 p.m. Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji. The United States stands prepared to provide support to our Pacific neighbors.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter he is “deeply concerned for the people of Tonga as they recover from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and tsunami. “We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land,” she said. She said she hadn’t yet been able to contact her friends and family in Tonga. Rachel Afeaki-Taumoepeau, who chairs the New Zealand Tonga Business Council, said she hoped the relatively low level of the tsunami waves would have allowed most people to get to safety, although she worried about those living on islands closest to the volcano. The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) were detected. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the U.S. The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Ardern said New Zealand’s military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.ĭave Snider, the tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said it was very unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, and the spectacle was both “humbling and scary.” One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of COVID-19. ![]()
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