On January 15, an underwater volcano near Tonga erupted. A powerful explosion was heard in Fiji, about 800 km away, and even as far as New Zealand in the south, which is 2300 km away. Satellite images showed that the eruption spewed ash up to 20km in height! The sky above Tonga is blackened by smoke and ash. Communications in that state have been cut off.
Waves formed up to 3m. Warnings of a potential tsunami (as a consequence of this strong eruption) have already been issued in Pacific countries such as Japan, Australia, Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii, the coast of Chile and the United States … Larger waves were forming across almost the entire Pacific. In Chile, for example, in the coastal city of Chanaral, the waves were almost 2 meters, while smaller waves were observed on the coasts from Alaska to Mexico! There was such a strong earthquake, magnitude 5.8.
According to Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/16/tonga-volcano-eruption-caused-significant-damage-says-ardern , the Prime Minister of New Zealand said that the eruption damaged the capital of Tonga, but there is no confirmed news of death for now (until January 16), especially because all communication lines are blocked. New Zealand could not send an army to monitor the situation because the black smoke and clouds were so thick that the atmospheric conditions did not allow any monitoring.
