Tongan eruption described as an awesome sight up close
Updated
One of the first people to travel to Tonga's underwater eruption describes it as an awe inspiring sight, describing dead fish floating on the ocean surface and a blackened and charred landscape on the nearest island. The volcano appeared after a weekend of seismic activity on the island nation. At first geologists were unsure what they were dealing with, and an investigation was delayed due to negotiations over who would pay the diesel fuel bill for a Tongan Navy Patrol Boat.
Presenter Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Nuku'alofa FM journalist George Lavaki
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LAVAKA: There are two islands in there both called Hunga, one is Hunga Tonga, the one closest to Tongatapu that is not affected. The other island is Hunga Ha'apai, that is the one where the eruptions were going from, not on the island itself, to the westward side, it was about 30 to up to 500 metres and there were around a square metre of about 500. They were all erupting all over the place around that area. But to the northern side, there was only one crater that was still active and the jet blown from that one against the cliff edge.
COONEY: So the smoke and everything is being generated by more than one sort of eruption then?
LAVAKA: That's right. From the 500 square metre areas, where we can see there were probably up to 15 from all over that area, but on the northern side there was only one crater, there was only one coming from the same thing itself. It's very spectacular to watch. You look at how the sea rises and then the explosion shoot up this dark, black, thick smoke, and then it explodes on top. It's just like a bomb, how it goes. Then you see the rocks and the real pumices coming off and then with their little blazing tails and all that.
COONEY: How close did you get?
LAVAKA: We got as far as 50 metres.
COONEY: How far were rocks and stones and that being spewed up into the air from what you could see?
COONEY: The explosions we saw in there went as far as 300 metres up to the sky before they exploded, just like normal fireworks, and then the stones started falling from there down onto the sea. And once it splashed, you can see the smoke coming out because it's white hot. So the pumice would pick up only mini small particles of pumice but because the wind was blowing all the pumices, and they were all right up against the island itself and the information started from the end of the island to about 500 metres westward and then we sail around to the northern side of the island and in the middle of the island, against the rock edge were two craters. One was dormant when we got there, but the sea was still boiling and the other one was still very active. It blew or erupted every minute. And around it, because it was deep, there was already some land in their like a foreshore around a semi-circle foreshore around the crater as well as the dormant one. There were lots of dead fishes and dead birds and when the wind blew away the eruptions, and then it cleared up within a minute. You can see the island is all black. It's like a black coffin with nothing living on it at all. There were coconut trees in there, but no leaves, only the stem all black. And the face of the cliff which is normally white, around the area there where the sea pounds it all the time, it's white or yellow, nothing was that colour, it was all black. It is one in a lifetime experience, but I am now coming back from there and I thought to myself, how stupid can you be.
