buildings were completely inundated. there are concerns many people living in low lying villages may have been swept away. significant damage has been reported on the western coast of main island tonga tapu, which is covered in a thick layer of ash. katie greenwood is coordinating the red cross response from fiji. these are her concerns. the good news for us is that we believe that from the information we can put together that it is not as catastrophic in those major population centres as we first thought that it might be. so that s really good news. but the team there on the ground, what they are doing at the moment is they have been supporting evacuations to bring the immediate crisis of the eruption and the tsunami warning, they ll be doing first aid as required. and now the job will be to assess the damage. they have urgent relief items required for households for things like clean water, shoring up their homes and shelters if they ve been damaged.
assessment from the air of the outer irish wins in particular. in provide information to the people of tonga and authorities. ash cloud does pose and authorities. ash cloud does pose a risk for the review on departure was stated be able to undertake in overflight reconnaissance and provide that critical information back. the volcano had been erupting for the past month, before the huge explosion on january 15th. this was the volcano onjanuary 7th. and this was just two hours before the eruption onjanuary15th. you can see the crater is completely covered by the sea. this shows you the northern part of the island before the eruption, a day after villages were no longer visible. day after villages were no longer visible. volcanologists are calling the eruption a one in a 1,000 year event. here s david pyle from the university of oxford. there are many underwater volcanoes but in terms of scale this is probably the largest underwater volcano eruption that we ve seen for
volcano that was very, very close to the most populous island, which has about 100,000 people. and tonga is not, is a flat land. you can t imagine these waves coming through, but there is no tall structures that stand in the way of the waves of people. we can only imagine the destruction, as we ve seen through pictures, waves that have gone up almost to the top of houses. so, when you think about when they say they have to run, they don t have anywhere elevated to run to, so they only have to run as further as they can in land. best wishes to you as you cover this story. thank you very much for joining us. story. thank you very much for joining us- story. thank you very much for joining us. story. thank you very much for oinin: us. :, ~ :, .,
affected by saturday s option. as you can see from the images the island where the volcano was is now submerged. the eruption lasted eight minutes and st cloud in as 20 km into the air. the sonic boom was so loud it could be heard in new zealand and over 9000, 700 km away in alaska. this for hundred kilometres away in fiji. boom. the eruption was so big it severed tonga s only fibre optic cable which connects tonga to the world, cutting all communications for at least 15 minutes. this was also the impact. waves nearly a metre high flooded the capital. other videos showed people running for higher ground.
grinding poverty, ethnic tensions, we ve had protest break out a few times over the years. back in 2019, though, the government in the capital made a decision, a unilateral decision to switch the solomon islands ties from taiwan over to mainland china, and some of the people on one of the solomon islands most populous island, my lighter, really took offence to this. they felt that that island in particular, because it s very christian, many people in taiwan are christian, they have a real connection with that and so they criticised the government for making this change and they say no, china has promised us to build a stadium, roads and bridges. to build a stadium, roads and brides. ~ ., ,