TAIPEI, Sept 18 (Reuters) – A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit the sparsely populated southeastern part of Taiwan on Sunday, the island’s weather bureau said, derailing train carriages, causing a convenience store to collapse and trapping hundreds on mountain roads.
The weather bureau said the epicentre was in Taitung county, and followed a 6.4 magnitude temblor on Saturday evening in the same area, which caused no casualties. read more
The U.S. Geological Survey measured Sunday’s quake at a magnitude 7.2 and at a depth of 10 km (six miles).
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Taiwan’s fire department said one person had died and 146 were injured by the quake.
All four people were rescued from a building that collapsed in Yuli, while three people whose vehicles fell off a damaged bridge were rescued and taken to hospital.
The Taiwan Railways Administration said six carriages came off the rails at Dongli station in eastern Taiwan after part of the platform canopy collapsed, but the fire department said there were no injuries.
More than 600 people are trapped on the scenic Chike and Liushishi mountain areas by blocked roads, though there were no injuries and rescuers were working to reopen the roads, the department said.
The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for Taiwan after the tremor but later lifted the alert. Japan’s weather agency lifted a tsunami warning for part of Okinawa prefecture.
The quake could be felt across Taiwan, the weather bureau said. Buildings shook briefly in the capital Taipei, and aftershocks have continued to jolt the island.
Science parks in the southern cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung, home to major semiconductor factories, said there was no impact on operations.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (2330.TW), , the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said there was “no known significant impact for now”.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes.
More than 100 people were killed in a quake in southern Taiwan in 2016, while a 7.3 magnitude quake killed more than 2,000 people in 1999.
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Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Martin Quin Pollard, Sam Nussey and Anirudh Saligrama; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Stephen Coates
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SYDNEY, Sept 12 (Reuters) – The death toll from a “significant” earthquake that struck Papua New Guinea on Sunday has risen to seven, the Pacific island nation’s police commissioner said, adding that it occurred deep below ground which limited damage.
An initial earthquake of 7.6 magnitude struck the Markham Valley at 9:46am on Sunday, followed by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake 70 km (45 miles) north an hour later, Commissioner of Police David Manning said in a statement on Monday. read more
The two earthquakes were reported at a depth of 90 km and 101 km underground, he said.
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Significant damage to buildings and roads and landslides were reported in Morobe, Eastern Highlands and Madang provinces, he said.
“Sadly, seven people have been confirmed dead as a result of these landslides. Three in Kabwum District and three in Wau Town, Morobe Province, and one in Rai Coast, Madang Province,” he said.
“This was a significant earthquake, however it occurred deep below ground level and this meant damage was less than if the epicentre had been closer to the surface,” he added.
Aviation company Manolos Aviation organised medical evacuations from Kombul village in Kabwum district.
“Half of the mountain is gone,” said Manolos Aviation public relations officer Erebiri Zurenuoc, who was at the scene in Kombul.
A National Command Centre has been established by the government, and a COVID-19 hotline has been repurposed for the public to offer information on earthquake damage.
The regional power grid, internet cables, roads and highways had been damaged, Manning said.
In Eastern Highlands province, there was damage to the University of Goroka and reports of injuries to students, he said. Engineers are assessing damage to the Yonki Dam that has caused power outages.
In Madang province, there were multiple injuries as buildings and houses were damaged, and one death was reported on the Rai Coast, he said.
He warned of a significant risk of aftershocks.
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Reporting by Kirsty Needham and Lewis Jackson in Sydney; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa
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Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a speech at his official residence in Tokyo, Japan July 14, 2022. Xinhua/Zhang Xiaoyu/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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TOKYO, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Japan will restart more idled nuclear plants and look at developing next-generation reactors, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday, setting the stage for a major policy shift on nuclear energy a decade after the Fukushima disaster.
The comments from Kishida – who also said the government would look at extending the lifespan of existing reactors – highlight how the Ukraine crisis and soaring energy costs have forced both a change in public opinion and a policy rethink toward nuclear power.
Japan has kept most of its nuclear plants idled in the decade since a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 triggered a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Quake-prone Japan also said it would build no new reactors, so a change in that policy would be a stark turnaround.
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Kishida told reporters he had instructed officials to come up with concrete measures by the year end, including on “gaining the understanding of the public” on sustainable energy and nuclear power.
Government officials met on Wednesday to hammer out a plan for so-called “green transformation” aimed at retooling the world’s third-largest economy to meet environmental goals. Nuclear energy, which was deeply opposed by the public after the Fukushima crisis, is now seen by some in government as a component for such green transformation.
Public opinion has also shifted, as fuel prices have risen and an early and hot summer spurred calls for energy-saving.
“It is the first step towards the normalisation of Japan’s energy policy,” said Jun Arima, a project professor at the University of Tokyo’s graduate school of public policy.
Japan needs nuclear power because its grid is not connected to neighbouring countries, nor is it able to boost output of domestic fossil fuels, he said.
Last month the government said it hoped to restart more nuclear reactors in time to avert any power crunch over the winter.
As of late July, Japan had seven operating reactors, with three others offline due to maintenance. Many others are still going through a relicensing process under stricter safety standards imposed after Fukushima.
Kishida also said the government would look at extending the lifespan of existing reactors. Local media earlier reported this could be done by not including the time reactors remained offline – years in some cases – when calculating their operating time.
Under current regulations, Japan decommissions plants after a predetermined period, which in many cases is 60 years.
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Reporting by Mayuko Sakoda and Yoshifumi Takemoto; additional reporting by Mariko Katsumura, David Dolan and Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Tom Hogue, Shri Navaratnam and Nick Macfie
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ATHENS, July 19 (Reuters) – A Greek wildfire fuelled by gale-force winds raged in the mountainous region of Penteli near Athens on Tuesday, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of at least four areas and a hospital.
Heavy clouds of smoke were rising into the sky billowing over Mount Penteli where the fire broke out at 1430 GMT, some 27 km (16 miles) north of central Athens.
Images showed the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis hill covered in red light due to the fire burning in the background. By nightfall, the flames were visible from the island of Evia, about 50 km away, according to witnesses.
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Local media reported the fire had burned at least one house but the fire brigade would not confirm the information. There were no reports of injuries, the fire brigade said.
About 420 firefighters assisted by 85 engines were trying to tame the blaze, which was burning on several fronts by late afternoon. More than 24 helicopters and planes earlier dumped water on the flames but had to halt operations at night for safety reasons.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of four areas, Drafi, Anthousa, Dioni and Dasamari. They also advised residents in more areas to prepare to evacuate.
One hospital and the National Observatory of Athens were evacuated as a precaution. Traffic was halted on roads leading to Penteli and police were helping residents find their way out of the fire-stricken areas.
Firefighters try to extinguish a wildfire burning in Ntrafi, Athens, Greece, July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas
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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis chaired a teleconference with civil protection authorities on the fire.
“Today is a difficult day. We are at the peak of the fire season and the current conditions make it easier for fires to break out and spread,” said Fire Department spokesperson Yiannis Artopios in a statement.
Artopios earlier told state TV ERT that the fire was a “difficult” case and that 28 firefighters from Romania were assisting local firefighters.
“We are fighting it, we are trying to circle the fire,” said Artopios.
Winds were forecast to persist until Wednesday afternoon.
More than 200 firefighters and equipment from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Romania, Norway and Finland will be on standby during the hottest months of July and August in Greece.
Last year, wildfires ravaged about 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) of forest and bushland in different parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heat wave in 30 years.
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Additional reporting by Angeliki Koutantou, Karolina Tagaris and Alkis Konstantinidis; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Sandra Maler and Richard Pullin
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DUBAI, July 2 (Reuters) – At least five people were killed and 49 injured by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in southern Iran early on Saturday, state media reported, with the area also hit soon after by two strong quakes of up to 6.3 magnitude.
Some 24 tremors, two with a magnitude of 6.3 and 6.1, followed the 2 a.m. local time quake that flattened the village of Sayeh Khosh near Iran’s Gulf coast in Hormozgan province. The most recent tremor occurred around 8 a.m., officials told state TV.
“All of the victims died in the first earthquake and no-one was harmed in the next two severe quakes as people were already outside their homes,” said Foad Moradzadeh, governor of Bandar Lengeh country, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.
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Emergency services spokesperson Mojtaba Khaledi told state TV that half of the 49 people injured had been discharged from hospitals.
Officials said search and rescue operations had ended.
Saeid Pourzadeh of the Kish island crisis task force said Gulf shipping and flights had not been affected by the quakes.
State TV said 150 quakes and tremors had struck western Hormozgan over the past month.
Major geological fault lines crisscross Iran, which has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 quake in Kerman province killed 31,000 people and flattened the ancient city of Bam.
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Reporting by Dubai newsroom and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese, Sandra Maler and Kenneth Maxwell
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KABUL, June 22 (Reuters) – The death toll from an earthquake in Afghanistan on Wednesday hit 1,000, disaster management officials said, with more than 600 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.
Houses were reduced to rubble and bodies swathed in blankets lay on the ground after the magnitude 6.1 earthquake, photographs on Afghan media showed.
An unknown number of people remained stuck under rubble and in outlying areas, photos showed. Health and aid workers said rescue operations were complicated by difficult conditions including rains, landslides and many villages being nestled in inaccessible hillside areas.
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“Many people are still buried under the soil. The rescue teams of the Islamic Emirate have arrived and with the help of local people are trying to take out the dead and injured,” a health worker at one of Paktika’s main hospitals said, asking for anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.
Mounting a rescue operation will prove a major test for the hard-line Islamist Taliban authorities, who took over the country last August after two decades of war and have been cut off from much international assistance because of sanctions.
A spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said it was sending teams in addition to ambulances and helicopters sent by the Taliban-led ministry of defence, which was leading rescue efforts.
“Although search and rescue efforts are ongoing, heavy rain and wind is hampering efforts with helicopters reportedly unable to land this afternoon,” he said via email.
“The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details,” interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi said.
DEADLIEST QUAKE IN 20 YEARS
Wednesday’s quake was the deadliest in Afghanistan since 2002. It struck about 44 km (27 miles) from the southeastern city of Khost, near the border with Pakistan, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Shaking was felt by about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said on Twitter, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan.
People carry injured to a helicopter following a massive earthquake, in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, June 22, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a video. BAKHTAR NEWS AGENCY/Handout via REUTERS
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The EMSC put the earthquake’s magnitude at 6.1, though the USGC said it was 5.9.
Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern province of Paktika, where 255 people were killed and more than 200 injured, Ayubi added. In the province of Khost, 25 were dead and 90 had been taken to hospital.
Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban, offered his condolences in a statement.
Adding to the challenge for Afghan authorities is recent flooding in many regions, which the disaster agency said had killed 11, injured 50 and blocked stretches of highway.
The disaster comes as Afghanistan grapples with a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over as U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country.
In response to the Taliban takeover, many nations imposed sanctions on Afghanistan’s banking sector and cut billions of dollars in development aid.
Humanitarian aid has continued, however, from international agencies such as the United Nations.
A foreign ministry spokesman said the Taliban would welcome international help. Several countries, including neighbouring Pakistan and Iran said they were sending humanitarian aid including food and medicine.
Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate. read more
In 2015, an earthquake struck the remote Afghan northeast, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
In January, an earthquake struck western Afghanistan, killing more than 20 people.
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Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru and Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Additional reporting by Kabul newsroom, Alasdair Pal in Delhi; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield and Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Robert Birsel, Clarence Fernandez, Angus MacSwan and Lisa Shumaker
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Jan 22 (Reuters) – Tongans queued for limited money services that were restored in the Pacific island’s capital on Saturday, as the clean-up continued a week after a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Tonga’s government said drinking water was the priority, and a national emergency team had already distributed 60,000 litres of water to residents. A desalination plant on a New Zealand naval ship that arrived on Friday, capable of producing 70,000 litres a day, has started drawing seawater from Tonga’s harbour.
Residents who had lost homes on outlying islands when a tsunami reaching up to 15 metres crashed over the South Pacific archipelago would be relocated to the main island, Tongatapu, because of water and food shortages, the Tongan prime minister’s office said in a statement distributed to Tongan officials.
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Volcanic fallout on the surface of the ocean was damaging boats and making marine transport between the islands challenging, and domestic flights were suspended, it said.
Ash fall and the tsunami had affected 84 per cent of the population, and inter-island communications remain an “acute challenge” with limited satellite and radio links, it said.
Burials were held earlier in the week for a Tongan man and a woman who had died when the tsunami hit the outlying Ha’apai islands. The official death toll is three. A field hospital has been set up on Nomuka Island after the health centre there was swept away.
Faka’iloatonga Taumoefolau, the coordinator for the project to rebuild Tonga’s parliament, said the restoration of international money transfer services, for limited hours on Saturday, was important for people to be able to buy essential goods.
“Tongans have demonstrated their resilience in this calamity and will get back on their feet,” he said, speaking to Reuters from Tongatapu.
More naval vessels from Australia, New Zealand and Britain are en-route to Tonga to deliver aid. Two aid flights, from Japan and New Zealand, arrived on Saturday with humanitarian supplies, after two flights from Australia on Friday evening.
COVID PRECAUTIONS
The Tongan government has implemented a strict COVID-19 policy that means people, including aid workers, cannot enter the country unless they have undergone a three-week isolation period. Aid deliveries have been contactless, with pallets quarantined for 72 hours after arrival at the airport before being distributed by Tongan authorities. One Australian aircraft returned to Brisbane midflight on Thursday after being notified of a COVID-19 case among the crew.
An aid delivery expected from China would also be contact-less to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the government said.
Taumoefolau said Tonga had done a good job in avoiding a pandemic outbreak, recording only one case so far, and the border policy would not hinder aid reaching communities.
“It is doable to get the aid in without compromising efforts on keeping COVID out,” he said.
An Australian navy vessel, HMAS Adelaide, was expected to arrive in Tonga on Wednesday with more bulk water and a 40-bed field hospital, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, Zed Seselja, told reporters in Canberra on Saturday.
The Tongan government was doing “an extraordinary job on the ground”, he said.
Australia and New Zealand were coordinating an international aid effort with support from Britain, France, the United States, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, he said, and the Tongan government had asked for support to be paced so the small airport was not overwhelmed.
Asked by reporters about China’s aid program in the Pacific, Seselja said: “We welcome offers of support from anyone, including the Chinese government”.
Sione Hufanga, the resident United Nations country coordination specialist, told Reuters that the agency is assisting the government in relief work as more people arrive at shelters and seek food and other supplies.
“Almost all crops in the country have been badly affected. Farmers have lost their homes and livelihood,” he told Reuters by phone from Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa. “The country will be heavily relying on aid food for some time.”
The agricultural sector contributed nearly 14% of Tonga’s GDP in 2015/16 and represented over 65% of exports.
The Tongan government said it is “deeply appreciative to the international community” for its assistance, which included US$8 million in funding from the World Bank and US$10 million from the Asia Development Bank.
Reliance, a repair ship due to reconnect the undersea cable that links Tonga to international telecoms networks, left its Port Moresby mooring and was expected in Tonga on Jan. 30, according to Refinitiv data on shipping movements.
The vessel was expected to arrive “in the next few days” to repair the fibre-optic cable, the Tongan government said.
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Reporting by Kirsty Needham;
Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
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U.N. seriously concerned about access to safe water
WELLINGTON/SYDNEY, Jan 21 (Reuters) – As aid trickles into the South Pacific nation of Tonga, devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami, an Australian aid flight was forced to return to base due to a positive COVID-19 case onboard, a defence official said on Friday.
Tonga is COVID-free and has a strict border control policy, and is requiring contactless delivery of aid that began arriving by plane on Thursday.
The Australian aid flight left Brisbane on Thursday afternoon but was turned around midflight after being notified of the positive COVID-19 case, an Australian defence spokeswoman said.
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All crew had returned negative rapid antigen tests before departure, but PCR tests later showed the positive result. The supplies were moved to another flight that took off on Friday.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption last Saturday triggered tsunami that destroyed villages, resorts and many buildings and knocked out communications for the nation of about 105,000 people, and sent shockwaves and tsunami across the Pacific.
Three people have been reported killed, authorities said.
Almost a week since the eruption and Tongans are struggling to find clean drinking water with their island homes shrouded in volcanic ash.
“We are cleaning the ash and have been since Monday,” said Branko Sugar, 61, who runs a bottle shop and fishing charter business from the capital Nuku’alofa.
“Everything is so dusty, and we are running out of water,” he said over a patchy telephone line.
“We only have the tap water, and it’s been contaminated. We’re just cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and can hardly breathe for all the dust.”
The first aid flights from Australia and New Zealand landed in Tonga on Thursday with much-needed supplies of water for sanitation and hygiene as well as shelter, communication equipment and power generators.
A New Zealand maritime sustainment vessel HMNZS Aotearoa carrying 250,000 litres of water and able to produce 70,000 litres per day through a desalination plant, is expected to arrive on Friday.
Australia’s HMAS Adelaide en route from Brisbane is due in Tonga next week.
URGENT ASSISTANCE REQUEST
United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a briefing that Tonga has asked for urgent assistance and the agency is in close contact with the authorities.
“Assessment teams have reached most parts of the country, including remote and isolated islands,” Dujarric said.
“We remain seriously concerned about access to safe water for 50,000 people throughout the country. Water quality testing continues, and most people are relying on bottled water,” he said.
Some 60,000 people have been affected by damage to crops, livestock, and fisheries due to ashfall, saltwater intrusion and the potential for acid rain, Dujarric said.
There are also reports of fuel shortages, he added.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Friday cash donations to Tonga for immediate humanitarian supplies – Australia has donated $1 million – would need to be followed with more substantial support for rebuilding.
“The impact of this volcanic eruption and the subsequent tsunami and the damage the inundation is causing will be an ongoing challenge for Tonga, particularly in relation to infrastructure,” she told Australian radio.
Telephone links between Tonga and the outside world were reconnected late on Wednesday, although restoring full internet services is likely to take a month or more.
Tongans have turned to social media to post images of the destruction by the tsunami and give accounts of their shock after the massive explosion.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has said the force of the eruption was estimated to be the equivalent of five to 10 megatons of TNT, or more than 500 times that of the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.
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Reporting by Praveen Menon, Kirsty Needham and Tom Westbrook; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Richard Pullin
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New Zealand navy ships to arrive in Tonga on Friday
Airport could re-open on Thursday
Australian PM speaks to Tongan counterpart
Japan, US, China and Australia offer aid
Jan 19 (Reuters) – Two New Zealand navy vessels will arrive in Tonga on Friday carrying critical water supplies for the Pacific island nation reeling from a volcanic eruption and tsunami and largely cut off from the outside world.
Hundreds of homes in Tonga’s smaller outer islands have been destroyed, with at least three dead, after Saturday’s huge eruption triggered tsunami waves that rolled over the islands, home to 105,000 people. read more
With Tonga’s airport smothered by volcanic ash and communications hampered by the severing of an undersea cable, information on the scale of devastation has come mostly from reconnaissance aircraft.
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The Red Cross said its teams in Tonga had confirmed that salt water from the tsunami and volcanic ash were polluting the drinking water of tens of thousands of people.
“Securing access to safe drinking water is a critical immediate priority … as there is a mounting risk of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea,” said Katie Greenwood of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
New Zealand said Tonga, one of the few countries to be free of the new coronavirus, had agreed to receive two of its ships, the Aotearoa and the Wellington, despite concerns about importing a COVID-19 outbreak that would exacerbate its crisis.
Simon Griffiths, captain of the Aotearoa, said his ship was carrying 250,000 litres of water, along with other supplies, and had the capacity to produce another 70,000 litres a day.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted about 40 miles (65 km) from the Tongan capital with a blast heard 2,300 km (1,400 miles) away in New Zealand, and sent tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean.
James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the force of the eruption was estimated to be the equivalent of five to 10 megatons of TNT, or more than 500 times that of the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.
Waves reaching up to 15 metres (49 feet) hit the outer Ha’apia island group, destroying all the houses on the island of Mango, as well as the west coast of Tonga’s main island, Tongatapu, where 56 houses were destroyed or seriously damaged, the prime minister’s office said.
ASH AND RUBBLE
HMNZS Aotearoa departs to provide disaster relief and assistance to Tonga after a volcanic eruption and tsunami, from Auckland, New Zealand, January 18, 2022, in this still image taken from video. New Zealand Defence Force/Handout via REUTERS
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Tongan communities abroad have posted images from families on Facebook, giving a glimpse of the devastation, with homes reduced to rubble, fallen trees, cracked roads and sidewalks and everything coated in grey ash.
Tonga has also been largely offline since the volcano damaged its sole undersea fibre-optic communication cable. Its owner said it would probably take a month or more to fix.
Telecommunications operator Digicel said it had restored some international phone service to Tonga through a satellite link, though numerous attempts by Reuters to get through were unsuccessful.
The archipelago has 176 islands, 36 of them inhabited. Its main airport, Fua’amotu International, was not damaged by the tsunami but was covered in ash, which has had to be cleared by hand.
A Tongan official said it might be possible for aid flights from New Zealand and Australia to begin on Thursday.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke with Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni.
He said two Hercules aircraft were ready to go with humanitarian supplies and telecommunications equipment, and that a naval ship, the Adelaide, was preparing to depart from Brisbane with water purification equipment and additional humanitarian supplies.
As well as emergency supplies, Australia and New Zealand have promised immediate financial assistance.
The U.S. Agency for International Development approved $100,000 in immediate assistance, and Japan said it would give more than $1 million in aid as well as drinking water and equipment to clear ash.
The Asian Development Bank was discussing with Tonga whether it would declare a state of emergency to draw on a $10-million disaster facility, senior bank official Emma Veve told Reuters.
China said it would send help including water and food when the airport opened.
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Reporting by Praveen Menon, Kirsty Needham, Tom Westbrook, Karen Lema, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Jane Wardell; writing by Robert Birsel; editing by Richard Pullin and Kevin Liffey
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Buildings destroyed or washed away, official toll two
Tonga navy says 5-10 metres (15-30 feet) waves hit island
Airport closed, hampering international aid efforts
Australia, NZ to send aid
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Tonga’s small outer islands suffered extensive damage from a massive volcanic eruption and tsunami, with an entire village destroyed and many buildings missing, a Tongan diplomat said on Tuesday, raising fears of more deaths and injuries.
“People panic, people run and get injuries. Possibly there will be more deaths and we just pray that is not the case,” Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie, told Reuters.
Tu’ihalangingie said images taken by New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) reconnaissance flights showed “alarming” scenes of a village destroyed on Mango island and buildings missing on nearby Atata island.
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Tonga police told the New Zealand High Commission that the confirmed death toll stood at two but with communications in the South Pacific island nation cut, the true extent of casualties was not clear.
Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said Tongan officials were hoping to evacuate people from the isolated, low-lying Ha’apai islands group and other outer islands where conditions were “very tough, we understand, with many houses being destroyed in the tsunami”.
The United Nations had earlier reported a distress signal was detected in Ha’apai, where Mango is located. The Tongan navy reported the area was hit by waves estimated to be 5-10 metres (15-30 feet) high, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Atata and Mango are between about 50 and 70 km from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 km (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand when it erupted on Saturday.
Atata has a population of about 100 people and Mango around 50 people.
“It is very alarming to see the wave possibly went through Atata from one end to the other,” said Tu’ihalangingie.
The NZDF images, which were posted unofficially on a Facebook site and confirmed by Tu’ihalangingie, also showed tarpaulins being used as shelter on Mango island.
British national Angela Glover, 50, was killed in the tsunami as she tried to rescue the dogs she looked after at a rescue shelter, her brother said, the first known death in the disaster.
CLEARING THE RUNWAY
A thick layer of ash blankets the islands, the aerial images provided to Tonga by New Zealand and Australia showed.
The archipelago’s main airport, Fua’amotu International Airport, was not damaged in Saturday’s eruption and tsunami but heavy ashfall is preventing full operations, hampering international relief efforts.
The U.N. humanitarian office said Tongan officials had said that clearing the runway would take days, as it was being done manually, with the earliest opening Wednesday.
People on the west coast of the main island of Tongatapu had been evacuated because of “significant damage”, OCHA added in an update, while government ministers had broadcast warnings on radio against price gouging amid worries of supply shortages.
The New Zealand’s foreign ministry said two ships, HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa, had departed New Zealand carrying bulk water supplies, survey teams and a helicopter.
Tonga is expected to set out its formal requests for aid today, said Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
C-130 flights from Australia could deliver humanitarian assistance including water purification supplies, she said, while the HMAS Adelaide, which would take five days to arrive by sea, was ready to carry engineering and medical personnel and helicopter support for distribution.
“The impact not just of the inundation, but of the extraordinary volume of ash which is covering everything, plus the communications issues, of course, makes this very difficult,” she said.
International mobile phone network provider Digicel has set up an interim system on the main island using the University of South Pacific’s satellite dish, New Zealand said.
ANZ said the bank’s Nuku’alofa branch is open for limited services, although clean water supply and communication were a major challenge for the bank.
CUT CABLE
The archipelago has remained largely cut off from the world since the eruption which cut its main undersea communications cable.
Subcom, a U.S. based private company contracted to repair various subsea cables in the Asia-Pacific, said it was working with Tonga Cable Ltd to repair the cable that runs from Tonga to Fiji.
Samiuela Fonua, the chair of Tonga Cable, said there were two cuts in the undersea cable that would not be fixed until volcanic activity ceased, allowing repair crews access.
“The condition of the site is still pretty messy at the moment,” Fonua told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, all but disappeared following the blast, according to satellite images taken about 12 hours later, making it difficult for volcanologists to monitor activity.
Tonga is a kingdom of 176 islands, of which 36 are inhabited, with a population of 104,494 people.
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Reporting by Jane Wardell, Praveen Menon and Kirsty Needham, writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Richard Pullin, Michael Perry, Robert Birsel
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