Volcano in the Tonga Islands | The threat ended, significant damage in Tonga, two victims in Peru

(Wellington) New Zealand was carrying out surveillance flights on Monday to assess the extent of the damage to neighboring Tonga, a small Pacific nation that could still be without internet for two weeks following the volcanic eruption that severed an underwater communications cable.

Saturday’s eruption was so powerful it was heard as far away as Alaska, triggering a Pacific tsunami that flooded coasts from Japan to the United States, and killed two people in Peru.

New Zealand sent a reconnaissance aircraft early Monday for “an initial assessment of the impact on the low-lying area and islands”, but information is trickling in.

Tonga has also accepted an Australian offer to send a surveillance plane, according to Canberra. Australia was also preparing “essential humanitarian commodities” to send.

Authorities in neighboring New Zealand said the disaster had caused “significant damage”, but no injuries or deaths have been reported so far in the archipelago.

“The tsunami had a significant impact on the northern coastline of Nuku’alofa”, Tonga’s capital, “with boats and large rocks washed ashore,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Cut off from the world

“Nuku’alofa is covered in a thick cloud of volcanic ash, but otherwise the situation is calm and stable,” Ms.^me Ardern after contacting her country’s embassy in Tonga. However, the archipelago needs to supply itself with water, because “the ash cloud has caused contamination”.

The archipelago remained cut off from the world on Monday, the cataclysm having apparently damaged an essential cable for its communications. “We’re only getting patchy information, but it looks like the cable has been cut,” said Southern Cross Cable Network director of networks Dean Veverka.

“It could take up to two weeks to get it fixed. The nearest vessel for laying the cable is in Port Moresby,” he added, referring to the capital of Papua New Guinea, located more than 4,000 kilometers from Tonga.

Stunning views taken from space late last week show the timing of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption, on one of Tonga’s uninhabited islands: a massive mushrooming of smoke and ash, followed immediately by the outbreak of a wave.

Waves of 1.2 meters swept through Tonga’s capital, where residents fled to higher ground, leaving behind flooded homes as rocks and ash fell from the sky.

“It was a huge explosion,” Tongan resident Mere Taufa told the Stuff news site. “The ground shook, the whole house shook. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding near our house.” A few minutes later, water invaded their house up to the ceiling.

“Deeply concerned for the people of Tonga,” tweeted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “ready to send help.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that the WHO was “ready to support the government and provide assistance”.

The United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) was preparing emergency supplies for Tonga, in coordination with Australia and New Zealand.

Drownings in Peru

More than 10,000 kilometers away in Peru, two women drowned on Naylamp beach in Lambayeque, in the north, due to “abnormal waves” following the eruption in Tonga, the National Center announced on Sunday. local emergency operations.

The eruption triggered tsunamis in the Pacific, with waves of 1.74 meters measured in Chanaral, Chile, and smaller observed along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico. Waves of about 1.2 meters hit Japan.

In California, the city of Santa Cruz was inundated by a tsunami-generated tidal wave, according to videos shared by the US Weather Service.

The United States Geological Institute (USGS) recorded the eruption as equivalent to a magnitude 5.8 earthquake at zero depth.

The eruption was heard as far away as Alaska, a “rather unique” fact, tweeted the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.