El volcano tonga which erupted on January 15, 2022, is located about 30 kilometers southeast of Fonuafoʻou, an island that is part of the nation of Tonga. On January 15, the island nation of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean began to erupt. Tsunami warnings were issued for Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, Baja California, the US West Coast, Japan, Peru and Chile due to the eruption of the submarine volcano, which triggered a tsunami that affected the country's islands and the Fiji coast.
We are going to tell you everything you need to know about the eruption of the Tonga volcano, what are its characteristics and the consequences of it.
volcano background
After the volcano had been relatively dormant since 2014, Hunga Tonga erupted on December 20, 2021, sending particles into the stratosphere, accompanied by a large ash plume visible from Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga, about 70 kilometers from the volcano. The Volcanic Ash Alert Center (VAAC) in Wellington, New Zealand, issued a warning to airlines that the blast was heard 100 miles (170 kilometers) away. The initial eruption ended on December 21 at 0200 hours. Volcanic activity continued, and by December 25, the island had increased in size on satellite images. With reduced activity on the island, it was declared inactive on January 11, 2022.
The first major eruption was recorded on January 14, 2022, sending a cloud of ash 20 kilometers high into the atmosphere. The eruption was audible for tens of kilometers around it, prompting an alert from local authorities. Residents of Fiji described thunder-like rumbles. The blast was heard in the North Island of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. In space, satellites propagating in the Pacific have been able to capture a very wide eruption column with shock waves.
Tonga volcano eruption
The eruption prompted evacuation orders off the coast of Tonga, as well as several South Pacific islands, with images on social media showing waves crashing against coastal homes. Telephone and internet lines were also cut. The Tonga volcano showed activity in December, but this one was unrivaled: it was more than seven times more powerful.
The volcano spewed steam, gas, and ash to a height of 20 kilometers and a radius of 260 kilometers. Ash has even reached the capital, Nuku'alofa, and according to some witnesses, the sound of the explosion can be felt hundreds of kilometers away in remote places such as Fiji or the Vanuatu archipelago. Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai already began its activities at the end of 2021, which highlights the importance of knowing how underwater volcanoes form. For a deeper understanding of these natural phenomena, it is interesting to explore how volcanoes originate. underwater volcanoes.
The GOES West satellite of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shared the images captured in the region on its official website. He explained that the extension of the ash column and gravitational waves can be seen in the recordings. It also provides visible "red" band imagery, providing the most detailed resolution of any satellite advanced baseline imager.
tsunami production
A tsunami triggered by an undersea volcanic eruption off Tonga hit the west coast of the United States and Canada on Saturday, with waves exceeding three feet in height on at least one occasion and causing minor flooding in parts of California.
The waves recorded so far range from 7 centimeters in Alameda (California) up to 24 centimeters in Port St. Louis, about 300 kilometers north of Los Angeles in the same state, according to a NOAA service. The impact came even though the California coast is nearly 8.700 kilometers (5.400 miles) from the South Pacific island nation of Tonga, where the eruption occurred. Japan's Pacific coast was attacked earlier this Sunday.
He said the tsunami caused "minor flooding" in Santa Cruz, California, beaches were closed, and people were evacuated from commercial areas near the coast, although no one was forced to leave their homes. This event highlights the relationship between volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, a phenomenon that can be further explored from various perspectives, as discussed in the article on radioactive tsunamis.
In Berkeley, Calif. some 110 people were evacuated from boats and docks along the coast; Most of the beaches in the southern part of the state were closed due to the alert, local outlet Berkeleyside reported.
Hours after the service issued a tsunami warning for Hawaii, the tsunami warning was canceled after confirming that waves of this magnitude had not occurred in the US Pacific Islands. Instead, NOAA maintains warnings of tsunami for California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, as well as for British Columbia, Canada.
The Chilean Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (SHOA) confirmed that the largest waves were felt in some cities in the north of the country, such as Iquique and Atacama, where minor flooding occurred.
Tonga volcano damage
The powerful eruption of an underwater volcano in Tonga, so powerful it was visible from space and felt in the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest ocean, has killed at least two people in Peru on the other side of those waters, and a tsunami warning was issued. triggered from Japan to the west coast of the United States, with evacuation from Chile to Australia. But the greatest destruction was recorded in Tonga, a kingdom of 170 small islands with about 105.000 inhabitants in the South Pacific.
Several Catalan weather stations can record changes in surface atmospheric pressure. One of them is the Fabra Observatory in Barcelona, whose manager Alfons Puertas recorded on social networks anomalies in the pressure records of the Catalan capital after the violent eruption, the same phenomenon also recorded at the observation point of the Selvi Meteorological Observatory . Catalonia (Meteocat). The shock wave from the eruption was recorded between Saturday night and early Sunday morning, when the atmospheric pressure suddenly changed.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the eruption of the Tonga volcano.