The small island nation of Tonga was cut off from the world after a volcanic eruption
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, it’s Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is lesson 440 and that means JR, the producer, has uploaded the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/440.
Coming up today: another volcanic eruption, this time in the Pacific Ocean near the archipelago nation of Tonga. In the hours after the eruption, Tonga lost all connection with the outside world when an undersea cable snapped. The English expression I’ll share with you is “turn back” and we have a quote of the week. Let’s get started.
Massive undersea eruption in Pacific
Tonga is a nation of 169 islands, only 36 of which are inhabited. Tonga is about 2,200 kilometers north of New Zealand and about 4,800 kilometers from Hawaii. It is home to about 100,000 people and about 70 percent of them live on Tongatapu, also known as the “Main Island.” The highest elevation on the Main Island is just 70 meters above sea level.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, located just off the coast of the Pacific nation of Tonga, erupted on the afternoon of January 15.
It was 5:15 p.m. local time when the undersea volcano sprayed a huge plume of ash, steam, and gas 30 kilometers into the air. The top of the cloud was 240 kilometers in diameter. On the Main Island of Tonga, residents heard an ear-splitting boom, and then another, and another. It was unlike anything they had heard before; they said it sounded like bombs exploding over and over. A similar boom, though less fierce, was heard as far away as Alaska.
Satellite photos show a cloud of gray-white ash suddenly appear over the blue Pacific waters. Then, it started raining ash and rock in the ocean and on the islands nearby. Residents said that it sounded like an awful hailstorm, but instead of ice pellets falling from the sky, it was bits of rock from the volcanic eruption. It even changed the color of the seawater nearby.
Then came the tsunami. Nobody knew how bad it would be, but residents scrambled for high ground. They had been prepared with warnings a few days before, and they relied on their own experience from previous tsunamis. When the waves came, it wasn’t as bad as people feared, but the water did cause extensive property damage; on some islands, all the houses were ruined.
When it was all over, a blanket of ash had covered the beaches and large parts of islands that make up Tonga. And the part of the volcano that used to be above sea level had all but disappeared. Satellite photos from before, during, and after the eruption tell the story. Before, a large part of the top of the volcano had formed an island above sea level. During the eruption, a huge plume of white ash was coming out of the top. And after it was all over, the top of the volcano had almost disappeared; only two tiny bits peaked above the water level.
Soon after the eruption, Tongans could post photos on social media and communicate with relatives. Their photos showed ash everywhere and significant damage to structures. Then, everything went dark.
Just one undersea cable connects Tonga to the outside world; it’s about the width of a garden hose and it spans the 827 kilometers between Tonga and Fiji, the nearest nation. Somewhere deep below the surface, the cable broke; experts think it might be broken in more than one place. Without this connection, Tonga was left with no access to the internet or international phone service.
The nearest cable repair boat was in Papua New Guinea, some 5,000 kilometers away. Crews will use pulses of light to determine where the cable is broken. Once the break is found, they’ll have to bring the damaged portion of the cable up onto the surface of the boat, make the repair in a special sealed area, and lay the cable again. They estimate it may take weeks to make the repairs. And that’s assuming there are no delays from further volcanic activity or storms in the area.
In the meantime, communication with Tonga is limited. Satellite phones work only when the weather is clear and high-frequency radio communication is spotty. Australia and New Zealand are sending humanitarian missions to supply the nation with food, water, generators, and medical supplies. There’s concern the water supply would be damaged from the ash, but it’s hard to tell. New Zealand is sending a ship capable of desalinating ocean water. At least one humanitarian flight turned back because of a positive COVID test. Tonga is one of the few nations not to have had any cases of the coronavirus.
Three people are said to have died, though that is still preliminary. Many people survived only by rushing to higher ground. One person survived by climbing a tree. And in an incredible story of resilience, a man with difficulty walking survived for 26 hours after being swept out to sea.
Fifty-seven-year-old Lisala Folau lives on the small island of Atata. He says he was swept to sea just an hour or two after the volcano erupted. He finally found his way to an uninhabited island, but with no food, water, or hope for rescue, he decided to leave that island and swim toward Tongatapu. The whole journey was over seven kilometers and took him 26 hours. Locals are calling him “Aquaman.”
Long distances
The distances are just incredible. It’s 800 kilometers from Fiji (itself not exactly a big place) and over 2,000 kilometers from New Zealand. And just 100,000 people live there. One organization ranks all the nations in the world according to their risk from natural disasters. Only two other nations in the world are at greater risk of natural disasters than Tonga.
By the way, you might remember Lesson 413, about the volcanic eruption on La Palma in the Canary Islands in Spain. That eruption was officially declared over just before Christmas, after ten consecutive days without any lava flowing. The eruption was active for 85 days and 8 hours, the longest ever in La Palma.
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