The blast and boom in Tonga

By Victoria Jaggard, SCIENCE Executive Editor

To paraphrase Tolstoy: All volcanoes are alike, but each volcano erupts in its own way. There are commonalities between the volcanoes in Iceland, La Palma, and the Kingdom of Tonga, with each one driven by the action of tectonic plates creating pockets of magma. Build up enough pressure, and the magma bursts forth, generating ashy plumes and lava flows. But differences in rock chemistry, elevation, and the underlying magma chambers mean that each one of these volcanoes erupts in a unique fashion. 

And for people living near them, the style of eruption they’re likely to see can make an incredible difference. 

On Saturday, people around the world saw the effects of an explosive eruption (pictured above) at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, a volcanic island that’s part of Tonga’s South Pacific archipelago. The mostly submerged peak had started erupting a few weeks ago, Robin George Andrews reports for us, and by mid-January its prolific plume was generating record amounts of lightning. Then came the violent outburst, which was so powerful it caused a sonic boom heard thousands of miles away. Tsunami waves quickly rushed ashore in the island kingdom, and surges were recorded as far away as California and parts of South America. 

As Andrews notes, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai is part of a volcanic system known for its violent eruptions. Here, one tectonic plate is diving beneath another, and water is getting added to the rocks in a way that makes the magma abundant, sticky, and gassy. So when it blows, it does so with alarming gusto. 

Tragically, Saturday’s immense blast severed communications with Tonga when it caused an undersea cable to fail, and reports are only now trickling in about how the people fared. 

According to a news release issued Tuesday by the Tongan government, there have been three recorded deaths in the wake of the eruption and tsunami, and houses have been destroyed on multiple islands.

But search and rescue efforts are hampered by the downed communication lines, as well as blankets of ash (seen in the aerial photograph above, from Monday) that have contaminated drinking water and covered airport runways. Then there are very real worries about international aid deliveries sparking a COVID-19 outbreak. 

For Tonga, “this is a potentially devastating event, and it’s horrifying to watch,” Janine Krippner, a volcanologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, told Andrews. “I feel sick thinking about it.” 

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