Whatever happened with the Tonga volcano?

[Lemarque]

I'd say I'm pretty aware of both mainstream news as well as getting information about current events from non-mainstream sources. I realized recently I haven't really heard anything about what has gone on in Tonga since the massive eruption there earlier this year.

I know initially there were reports about internet to the islands getting cut off, but I was expecting that we would have a ton of first-hand video of what happened down there with both the eruption and the tsunami. It's like the 'rescue' efforts of providing food and water to the area were reported on, and before and after satellite pictures, but then it went completely silent. I don't recall seeing much, if anything, of on the ground reporting.

I was expecting Youtube would have at least something like "Life in Tonga 6 months after the eruption" but all I'm seeing is videos from 7-8 months ago.

Does anyone here have links to more recent information? Or have some insight into what happened down there and why it got memory-holed? Or did I somehow just miss the reporting and I'm imagining how quickly the story disappeared?

[SmallFarm]

This is Geology Hub's latest video on the volcano. I follow Geology Hub for all my science-based updates for geologic events.

[Lemarque]

This is Geology Hub's latest video on the volcano. I follow Geology Hub for all my science-based updates for geologic events.

That was pretty informative, thanks.

Unfortunately for me, I think all of the photographs in that video were from the first couple days of the incident. The gif of the eruption cloud, the before and after pictures; I have seen all of those. It used a bunch of Google Earth and animations to explain what happened, but no newer photographs or video footage is in that video.

I would expect footage from two perspectives: From people on ships surrounding the area, and from people with phones/cameras on the islands.

From sea, I doubt it would have been 90 meters when it hit ships that were travelling in the area. But even a 15-20 meter wave is big. Here's the vesselfinder map right now, yellow are cargo vessels, orange are tankers, I removed fishing boats and yachts. It's not an empty section of the ocean by any means, so I'm surprised at not having footage from that perspective.

Screenshot 2022-09-18 170519.png (127.25 KiB) Viewed 377 times

Perhaps the destruction on the islands themselves was so great (90M is a really big wave) that all the footage from cell phones at that level got washed out to sea and that's why we don't have it. But then we should have an update from the ground of what those islands look like now, instead of just before and after satellite photos from a couple days after the event.

When I search, "how many people died tonga eruption" the only number I get from news articles is 3, no matter what search engine I use. Often combined with the 'three dead' is a statement about how all the homes on one island were destroyed. Many of these articles seem to imply that the death toll will go up since at that point they hadn't been able to get in contact with many of the outer islands. And the articles are all from Jan 17 through 20. One article, released on Feb 9 by Nature.com, also says "at least three people have died in Tonga." Wikipedia lists that 4 died. So since it didn't cause widespread death I'm surprised that we don't have footage from after the big eruption. Ground level video of ash covering everything, of the houses that got washed out, and so on.

Basically, almost every update I've seen has been from a scientific standpoint, like this youtube video you shared. The Nature article is the same, it mentions that people died but mainly focuses on scientific explanations of what happened, what impact it will have on climate, and so on.

But I'm still hoping to find a good source of what it was like from a human standpoint. What was it like having ash pour down from the sky? How did an entire island survive having every building on the island destroyed? Stuff like that.

[Lemarque]

I did find one story I hadn't heard before. Apparently on the island of Atata everything was destroyed except for the LDS church, as reported by the BBC here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60051524

And repeated here in ldsliving: https://www.ldsliving.com/how-the-churc ... mi/s/10365

Interesting discrepancy in those two articles. BBC says a 2016 census showed that 19% of Tongans are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but LDS Living says according to church statistics from 2019, 63.5% of the population are church members.

There are some aftermath pictures from the church news in New Zealand. https://news-nz.churchofjesuschrist.org ... alling-ash

[SmallFarm]

Newest stories I can find for what you are talking about is five months back.

[Niemand]

I was thinking about Tonga today. The short answer is that small remote islands and their plight take a backseat to Putin, Elizabeth II and monkeypox.

[Chip]

https://endtimeheadlines.org/2022/09/to ... -48-hours/

A volcano north of Tonga’s main island has erupted eight times in the past 48 hours, according to the Pacific nation’s geological service, which has warned mariners to keep their distance Tuesday. The Home Reef volcano has been erupting for the past 10 days, oozing molten lava and shooting steam and ash at least three kilometres (almost two miles) into the air.

Home Reef’s eruption currently poses a low risk to “residents of Vava’u and Ha’apai” — two of Tonga’s most populated islands — the geological service’s Volcano Watch Team said in a statement. But warning levels were raised by one notch Tuesday as the pace of eruptions quickened.

Pilots have been warned to take caution when flying through airspace near the volcano after the aviation alert level for the Home Reef was raised to orange, one step below an emergency. Mariners have been told not to sail closer than four kilometres from Home Reef and to look out for falling ash.

Seismic activity is fairly common around Tonga, a small archipelago nation with about 100,000 people spread across 171 islands. In January this year, it was rocked by the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano, which was one of the most powerful in modern times, according to researchers from the University of Bath. (INSIDER)