Photo: Tonga Meteorological Service / EFE
The violent one tonga volcano eruption, which caused a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, is the loudest since the explosion of the mythical Indonesian volcano Krakatoa, in 1883 and that it affected the planet’s temperature, according to New Zealand volcanologist experts.
The outbreak of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, an underwater volcano sitting in the waters of Tonga, caused atmospheric waves that were recorded around the Earth and that still “continue to go around the world,” the GNS Science geological institute said in a statement.
“It could be heard from New Zealand, heading south, to Alaska, heading north,” says expert Steve Sherburn, stressing that the column of smoke and ash reached up to 30 kilometers high according to preliminary data.
Sherburn explains that this is due to the “low frequency” waves caused by the eruption and that can travel “thousands of kilometers away from the source” the explosion of the Tongan volcano would be classified as the “most heard” in the world.
The outbreak of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which practically made the two islands that flanked it disappear, generated a tsunami that impacted several nations bathed by the Pacific Ocean, with waves of up to 15 meters in Tonga, as distant as the United States, Chile, Japan and Australia, among others.
A natural phenomenon caused by a volcano of such strength that it has not been recorded since the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java, whose explosion in 1883 caused a tsunami with waves of up to 40 meters and caused the global temperature to drop by 1.2 degrees.
Scientific studies previously indicate that the eruption of Krakatoa generated the loudest sound ever recorded and a column of ash that reached 80 kilometers in height.
Six days after the disaster, Tonga begins to come out of the isolation in which the eruption plunged it, which broke the communication cables with the island nation, and the first shipments of humanitarian aid begin to arrive.
The Red Cross estimates that some 80,000 people, of the total of 105,00 inhabitants of the country, have been affected by these catastrophes, where the distribution of water is a priority due to the contamination of aquifers.
A New Zealand Navy ship loaded with 250,000 liters of drinking water and a desalination plant with the capacity to produce 70,000 liters is scheduled to arrive in Tonga this Friday.
Also read:
Photos: Tonga volcano that caused a tsunami disappears after violent eruption
· Tonga: what is known so far about the damage after the eruption and subsequent tsunami
VIDEO: Tsunami from Tonga reached the coast of Peru and caused the death of two women
eldiariony.com
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.