Thursday, March 28

This is how the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, the underwater volcano that has caused a tsunami in the Pacific, was seen from space


Over the last few years the Southern-Haapai people, an underwater volcano with an unpronounceable name located in the South Pacific, just 65 kilometers from Tongatapu, has forced the citizens of his country, Tonga, to look at the sea with concern. Between 2009 and 2021 it starred in several eruptions that, among other consequences, left huge columns of ash.

Despite its impact in recent years, however, few images have left the volcano as impressive as the one that accompanied its new outburst, in the last few hours. The reason: it has been captured from a bird’s eye view. Or probe, better. The satellites that orbit the Earth have been able to portray the moment in which the volcano sent its enormous column of smoke to the skies.

A column of 20 kilometers

On Friday –as detailed by the Geological Survey of Tonga— the volcano ejected a considerable amount of steam, gas and ash to a height of up to 20 kilometers and a radius of 260 km. The ash even reached the capital, Nuku’alofa, and the noise of the explosion would have been felt, according to some witnesses, in distant points, such as the islands of Fiji or Vanuatua, hundreds of kilometers away. The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha´apai had already shown activity at the end of 2021.

The size of the volcanic cloud has allowed the phenomenon to be seen clearly from some probes that orbit the Earth, such as the GOES West satellite of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which shares the images captured in the region on its official website. In the recording, he explains, you can see the extension of the ash column and the gravity waves gravitational. It also provides visible ‘red’ band images, which offer the most detailed resolution of any from the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager.

Also noteworthy are the snapshots captured by the Himawari-8 satellite, of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), which has released GeoColor images of the eruption as the sun rose over the region. official bodies such as el National Weather Service (NWS) Honolulu They have shared the impressive content of the Japanese probe on their own social networks.

The photograph that heads this article is taken by the Himawari-8 and can be consulted on the website of Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch (RAMMB), where the latest images from the probe are posted. The eruption is clearly seen in the South Pacific selecting the time slot from 04:00 to 05:10 UTC on January 15 and checking the Loop option.

The violence of the eruption, which was accompanied by an earthquake, has also generated a tsunami which has caused serious damage to populations in Tonga and has forced evacuations. Your Weather Service has actually issued a warning for the entire country.

Cover Image | RAMMB (Himawari-8)





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