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The Tonga Islands have been hit by a tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption in the Pacific. Telephone and Internet lines are cut. Planes cannot land because an ash cloud has formed.
In satellite images, the landscape of the Tonga Islands changes from green to gray. The port is now covered in ash and dust. The archipelago is devastated by the eruption of a volcano last weekend, one of the most powerful observed in recent decades in the world.
It all started with an underwater volcano. Its molten magma came into contact with water which triggered the eruption. “The sea water was suddenly overheated, it vaporized so like a pressure cooker, it was projected, it all exploded. It made a mixture of columns of gas and water which rose to an altitude of 20 meters or even 30 “, details Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff, volcanologist. The shock wave traveled across the ocean in waves felt as far away as the United States. The tsunami killed at least three people. The archipelago remains cut off from the world for the moment.
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