The Tonga eruption was also picked up by all 53 monitoring stations of the CTBTO, the international organization that monitors from Vienna whether nuclear tests are being held anywhere in the world.
Geophysicist Ronan Le Bras, affiliated with the CTBTO, says to the American public radio station NPR that even the Antarctic monitoring station noticed the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption. Never has the CTBTO recorded such a strong explosion on Earth since the organization’s founding in 1996.
American researchers from space agency NASA previously estimated the power of the eruption at about 10 megatons; that is 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the US used to destroy Hiroshima in 1945. According to Le Bras, that is a conservative estimate of the actual force with which Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted.
chain reaction
Scientists don’t yet know why the explosion was so powerful. A New Zealand volcanologist told the BBC that the undersea eruption in relatively shallow water, combined with the direct contact of lava with the seawater – which instantly turned into steam – may have triggered some sort of chain reaction.
The eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 caused the Earth’s temperature to drop by about half a degree for several years. Scientists don’t think the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano will have a similar effect. The eruption released considerably less gases than the Pinatubo.
Drinking water supplied
Six days ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted. The tsunami caused by the eruption killed at least three people in Tonga and destroyed entire villages.
In the days that followed, much was unclear about the situation in Tonga, because submarine cables were damaged by the eruption and communication was virtually impossible. Furthermore, the airfield was covered with a thick layer of ash.
Pictures of the damage on Tonga:
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