First aerial and satellite images have been published on Tuesday. The damage seems considerable and a first assessment reports three people.
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It took four days for first aerial photos give an overview of the double disaster that struck the Tonga Islands on Saturday, January 15th, when the violent eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano has caused a tsunami . Clichés, ash color, published Tuesday, which reveal terrible property damage but offer little information about the population, just over 100,000 people, always almost cut around the world. Only a few rare exchanges by satellite phone.
“It’s terribly scary from being without news of his loved ones. I do not know where my father is, where are my cousins. I spend my days trying to understand the situation on social networks. My family n ‘had not realized how dangerous this volcano “, testifies tolenitoni Tu’ulakitau, a Tongan-based lawyer installed in Australia, the white voice. All telephone and internet communications have been interrupted shortly after the eruption. The submarine cable that connected the archipelago to the rest of the planet, via Fiji, was damaged. Its reparation may require several weeks while internal links have been partially restored.
A temporary assessment, Wednesday, reported three deaths including a British 50-year-old, driven by the waters after trying to save the dogs from his refuge. If it may still worsen, the balance sheet could have been much heavier. In recent days, anxiety has been particularly lively for villagers in the Ha’apai region, inhabiting a few tens of kilometers from the volcano, on low altitude islands. Tuesday night, in a very first press release, the Tongien government indicated that contacts, limited, could have been established and that the first rescue teams, carrying water, food and tents, had been hurried on the spot By boat, especially on the islands of Mango and Fonoifua where a hundred people live. At Mango, all the houses were taken away by the waves. In Fonoifua, they were only two to stand. The evacuation operations started.
Thick ash layer
The extent of damage was revealed Tuesday by aerial images taken by UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Center, and military recognition aircraft sent Monday by Canberra and Wellington. On these clichés, the houses, the beaches and even the vegetation are covered with a thick layer of ashes. The colors of paradise followed themselves. Everything took sepia tones. The island of Tongatapu, where the capital is located, Nuku’Alofa, just 65 km south of the Volcano, also undergone significant damage. On the west coast, water has swallowed homes and tourist structures. Roads are impassable. The trails of the airport have been buried under a rain of ashes and rocks. Clearing work is in progress. An essential step so that international aid finally reaches the population.
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