Source: NIWA – National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
“Some surrounding seamounts have pockets of normal biodiversity, such as corals, sponges, starfish, and mussels, indicating the resilience of such marine ecosystems and giving some hope for recovery.”
Dr Emily Lane is a hydrodynamic scientist at NIWA and has been, in equal parts, intrigued and puzzled by the impact of HT-HH’s explosion.
She says tsunami are most commonly associated with earthquakes, which cause sharp movements or landslides on the seafloor, displacing large volumes of water.
Tsunami from volcanic eruptions, however, are rare. Less than a hundred have been recorded in the past two centuries and these have been localised and small.
HT-HH, by contrast, sent a sequence of waves up to 19m high surging towards Tonga’s western coast, riding up beaches and smashing homes and holiday resorts. Waves also swept right around the Pacific, with damage reports coming in from New Zealand, Japan, Russia and the coastlines of North and South America.
Remarkably, due it seems to a combination of sparse population, early warning and the time of the event, only four lives were lost when the huge waves swept into Tonga.
Two people, however, were also killed 10,000kms away in Peru when 2m waves washed ashore.
