International agencies responsible for assessing the damage caused to the Tonga islands by the powerful underwater eruption caused by a tsunami, which killed at least one person, reported on Tuesday “considerable damage”.
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“From what little information we have, the scale of devastation could be immense, especially on the most isolated islands,” said Katie Greenwood of the International Federation of the Red Cross.
The first estimates of the scale of the crisis were transmitted by satellite telephone or established thanks to reconnaissance overflights above a country cut off from the Internet network after the rupture of a cable.
No human toll has been revealed but the body of a Briton swept away by a wave of tsunami has been found, her family announced. At least one other person is missing in the archipelago.
The first confirmed victim is a 50-year-old woman, Angela Gover, who went out for a run with her dog and went missing shortly after the tidal wave.
“Today my family sadly learned that my sister Angela’s body has been found,” her brother Nick Eleini said after being notified by the victim’s husband, James Glover.
“James was able to hang on to a tree for quite a while, but Angela couldn’t and was taken away with the dog,” he told Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
Australia and New Zealand, which sent Orion reconnaissance planes over Tonga the day before, have aid ships ready for deployment.
The capital Nuku’alofa was covered with two cm of ash and volcanic dust, describes the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations (OCHA) in an emergency report. Electricity has been restored in some areas of the city. The local telephone network is also restored, but international communications are interrupted.
Rocks and debris were also swept inland by the tsunami, damaging the Nuku’alofa waterfront.
Water, a priority
But the agency is particularly concerned about the situation on the low-lying island Mango, where “significant property damage” was spotted and where a distress signal was triggered, as well as on the island of Fonoi.
OCHA reports ‘extensive damage’ to western beaches on the main island, Tongatapu, ‘with several resorts and/or houses destroyed and/or severely damaged’.
A finding corroborated by a small contingent of the Australian police stationed in the archipelago which provided a first assessment “quite worrying” of the western beach area, according to the Australian Minister for International Development, Zed Seselja.
Satellite images released by the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) showed the aftermath of the eruption and tsunami on the small island of Nomuka, one of the closest to the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano.
According to UNOSAT, 41 of the 104 structures spotted in the cloud-free zone were damaged and almost all were covered in ash.
The country’s airport hoped to be able to clear its runway on Monday, says OCHA, to allow the landing of Australian C-130 military planes.
The ships HMAS Adelaïde, from the Australian fleet, HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa, from the New Zealand fleet, were deployed towards Tonga which is three days sailing away.
Due to the risk of pollution from volcanic residue, water should be a priority, New Zealand’s defense minister said on Tuesday.
France, “neighboring the Kingdom of Tonga” via the overseas collectivity of Wallis and Futuna, said it was “ready to meet the most urgent needs of the population”, according to a press release.
Major aid agencies, which are responding quickly to provide urgent humanitarian aid, said they were stuck, unable to contact local staff.
Last week’s volcanic eruption was the largest recorded in decades: a massive 30km-high plume of smoke and ash followed immediately by the onset of a tsunami.
1.2 meter waves swept over Nuku’alofa, where residents fled to higher ground, leaving behind flooded homes as rocks and ash fell from the sky.