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The footage shown  by the Beeb of the eruption seen from an island was a small precursor. The satellite sequences are  sped up comppered with real time, nit sure  by how much.

Volcanocafe has two  posts authored by Albert , a planetary geology prof at Manchester, here's yesterdays update:

https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-hunga-tonga-explosion/

Peter

 

 

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Is anyone else baffled why the tv news has spent so much time on a multi-millionaire tennis player, when an event affecting half the globe is barely mentioned?

Jerry

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Thank you, Peter!   Your friend's website is most informative, explains what happened very clearly.   Let's hope that there isn't a second explosion.

The apparent lack of interest in the media may be because on Tonga the tsunami has obliterated mobile phones, the explosion broken telephone cables to the island and even satellite phones aren't functioning because of the ash cloud.     There is no news to report, save for responses from the outside world.   O tempora, o technologies!

There may be another Biblical plague about to descend on Tonga.   Its isolation meant that it was able to keep Covid out, almost entirely, but a legion of rescue workers will almost certainly bring it.       I don't know how many have been vaccinated on Tonga, but there are only 100,000 people there.   I hope that vaccine is included in the relief supplies.

Please continue to keep us volcano-informed, Peter!

John

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10 hours ago, jerrytr5 said:

Is anyone else baffled why the tv news has spent so much time on a multi-millionaire tennis player, when an event affecting half the globe is barely mentioned?

Jerry

The media pander to those who don't give a toss about humanity but live only for sensationalism - it makes money

Cynical - Moi

 

Roger

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Footage now emerging from Tonga:

Tonga: new footage shows aftermath of volcano eruption and tsunami - YouTube

 

Has something been changed on the board?     I've copied the URL of that report from YouTube and pasted it above - but it just appears as a line of text, not a link or a playable video!   If you go to YouTube and search for that title you will see it.    Dramatic satellite view of the explosion,  the tsunami coming ashore and the aftermath on Tonga, with local journalists reporting.

John

 

Edited by john.r.davies
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15 minutes ago, Peter Cobbold said:

The worst effect of the eruption might be upon water supplies and contamination  with fluoride from the ash.

Yes the UN emergency response reports state that groundwater contamination is a key priority at present with about 50,000 people potentially affected by that. Also of concern is the impact of ash and potentially of acid rainfall on crops, and there has ben some loss of livestock. About 200 houses have been damaged to various degrees. While an awful upheaval for the islanders, the scale of the humanitarian response needed is fairly small and well within regional capacity and the main airport is fully open.

Nigel

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NZ has sent a Naval ship  with a desalination plant that can provide 70,000L a day.   Sounds a lot, may not go far among 100,000 people, but well done Kiwis!

The Tongans have been clearing the airport runways of ash with bucket, spade, wheelbarrows and brooms, so that relief planes can land.

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5 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

NZ has sent a Naval ship  with a desalination plant that can provide 70,000L a day.   Sounds a lot, may not go far among 100,000 people, but well done Kiwis!

Brings back memories of the 2017 hurricanes that battered the Caribbean. One of them - Hurricane Maria, a cat 5 bruiser - ran directly over Dominica. A Royal NL Navy ship was quickly moved to the island and had the capability for fresh water production at decent scale. Unfortunately it sat in offshore for several days while a lack of effective coordination onshore (the government had been shredded) meant the means could not be procured to move water from the quayside to where it was needed - including to the only hospital on the island, inundated with trauma patients in addition to its normal caseload and which came within a few hours of running dry completely. (I know because I was there.) Sometimes it's the last mile that's the gotcha. 

Nigel

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