2 people have been confirmed dead in the Pacific island nation so far, but communications are still patchy, and the scale of the damage is just starting to become clear.
— A volcano that exploded on the Pacific island nation of Tonga has almost disappeared from view, new images revealed Tuesday, with swathes of the island nation smothered in grey ash and dust or damaged by a tsunami. Tonga has been virtually cut off from the rest of the world since Saturday's volcanic blast — one of the largest recorded in decades.
"What we saw above the water, that has now been destroyed, was only the tip of a volcano that had grown on the rim of the massive underwater volcano," said Monash University volcanologist Heather Handley. In this handout photo provided by the New Zealand Defense Force, an aerial view from a P-3K2 Orion surveillance flight shows ash covering a coastal area on January 17, 2022, in Nomuka, Tonga.Australia's HMAS Adelaide and New Zealand's HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa were ordered to be ready for a possible aid request from Tonga, which lies three to five days' sailing away.
The United Nations said a signal had been detected from a distress beacon on the low-lying island of Mango. Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa was shrouded in almost two inches of volcanic ash and dust, it said. Power had been restored to parts of the capital. Local phone systems had been restored but international communications were still difficult as the blast severed an undersea communications cable between Tonga and Fiji. Operators said it would take up to two weeks to repair the cable.
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