The Tonga islands were facing an immense shortage of fresh water on Friday, almost a week after the eruption of a volcano in the archipelago, whose effect was compared to the explosion of an “atomic bomb” by a rescue service official.
In Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga, “it was like an atomic bomb”, the secretary general of the Red Cross of Tonga, Sione Taumoefolau, testified to AFP by telephone.
“The entire island shook from the eruption,” he said.
On January 15, the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which caused a tsunami, isolated this small Pacific nation from the rest of the planet, after the communication cable that linked the archipelago to the Internet network broke.
The situation remains difficult, due to the lack of humanitarian aid and the titanic ash cleaning operation that the inhabitants must now face.
“The worst thing for us is the ashes. Everything is covered in ash from the volcano,” Taumoefolau said.
Jonathan Veitch, in charge of coordinating the United Nations operations in Fiji, estimated that the main problem is drinking water.
The water supplies of tens of thousands of people could be contaminated by ash from the volcano, or by the salt water from the tsunami that followed.
“Before the eruption, most of them relied on rainwater,” Veitch told AFP.
– “Triple hit?” –
“If the ash has made everything toxic, that’s a problem unless they can access underground sources.” For him, “it is now vital to be able to determine its location”.
Water analyzes have begun, but after last Saturday’s eruption, “the whole country is covered in ash,” Veitch said.
Rescue operations, in fact, only began on Thursday, after the archipelago’s main airstrip was finally cleared of the thick layer of ash that covered it.
Australian and New Zealand military planes carrying emergency aid managed to land. But distance, communication difficulties and measures to prevent Covid-19 from affecting this 170-island kingdom complicate operations.
“It’s not easy. It’s far from everything. Therefore, there are access restrictions. And there is still the problem of covid, of course, as well as the lack of means of communication”, acknowledged the UN coordinator.
“I would say it’s almost a triple whammy.”
As foreign aid arrivals intensify, the UN is “concerned” about the risks linked to covid, Veitch said, referring to the omicron variant that is currently spreading across several Pacific archipelagos, in particular the Solomon Islands and Kiribati.
The government is looking for a way to bring humanitarian workers into the country without running the risk of contaminating the population.
The government of Tonga has completed the assessment of the extent of the damage, especially on the islands that were affected by the tsunami caused by the eruption.
Three people died, but the financial extent has not yet been established. “Nothing suggests that the human balance is greater, but the (material) destruction is numerous,” according to Veitch.
Many people living on remote islands, and lost their homes, were taken to the big island of Nomuka.
The New Zealand ship HMNZS Aotearoa docked in Tonga today, carrying large supplies of fresh water.
“It also has the capacity to desalinate 70,000 to 75,000 liters of water a day, which will make a difference for people, at least in Tongatapu,” said Veitch.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) sent a large number of water kits aboard the Australian humanitarian vessel “HMAS Adelaide”, which left Brisbane on Thursday night.
“We also sent a lot of equipment to treat the water,” said Veitch.
The volcanic eruption was felt even in Alaska, more than 9,000 km away. A 30 km tall smoke mushroom dispersed ash, gas and acid rain across Tonga’s 170 islands.
That eruption caused a massive pressure wave that ripped through the planet, moving at a speed of 1,231 km/h, according to New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmosphere Research.
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