Satellite images show that the Tonga volcano whose violent eruption caused a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean has practically disappeared after the explosion recorded on Saturday, one of the most powerful in three decades.
Recent photographs from the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) reveal that following the eruption of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apa volcano, only two small portions of land remain above sea level.
Before the strong explosion, these two surviving portions, part of the cone of the submarine volcano, were much larger and were joined by a tongue of land up to 1.2 kilometers wide.
Communications with Tonga remain poor three days after the volcano eruption, about 65 kilometers north of the island of Tongatapu, the most habitable in the archipelago, and the subsequent tsunami, while at least one death has already been confirmed, although the authorities believe that the number of victims will be higher.
Australian and New Zealand planes have flown over part of Tonga, made up of 169 islands and with 150,000 inhabitants, in reconnaissance tasks to assess the damage caused by the eruption and the tsunami, which affected the coasts of United States, Peru, Japan and Australia, among other countries.
For its part, the American company Planet, which has a network of 150 satellites, shows this Tuesday aerial images of the devastation caused by the tsunami in Tonga thanks to the fact that the “clouds caused by the volcano are clearing”, they point out on Twitter.
In a photograph you can see that a coastal settlement with around a ce Some of the buildings and the nearby forests have practically disappeared completely and now it is covered by a dense blanket of ash.
The violent eruption of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai, which released steam and ash on some 17 kilometers high and created a tsunami that impacted several nations bathed by the Pacific Ocean, was heard hundreds of kilometers away and put be seen clearly from satellites in Earth orbit.
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