The South Pacific island nation of Tonga is one of the smallest and most isolated on the planet, but last Saturday it made its presence felt around the world.
The eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, an underwater volcano beneath two Tongan islands, was a reminder of how seemingly obscure places can leap from nowhere to affect the lives of people far away. The blast was heard 1,400 miles away in New Zealand, and the tsunami that it generated travelled to the opposite sides of the Pacific, capsizing boats in Japan and causing an oil spill in Peru.
The blanket of ash that now covers many of Tonga’s 170 islands will disrupt agriculture and tourism for months or years, and do more economic damage to
