When coastal geologist Ian Goodwin went surfing at Avalon Beach at sunrise on Sunday, he could feel the after-effects of the tsunami that had ripped through Tonga only hours earlier.
“This is an extremely rare event with only a handful of similar scale eruptions in the past century,” Australian National University climate scientist Nerilie Abram said. “The atmospheric pressure wave travelled around the globe and was heard as far away as Alaska. This kind of volcanic eruption could have a major impact on our climate in coming years, but it will take a few days until we have the data to understand that.
On Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology issued renewed tsunami alerts and marine threat warnings for all of Australia’s east coast, with lifesavers closing all beaches affected by the warning. NSW beaches remained closed on Sunday evening.NICT The eruption generated large waves in several South Pacific islands and triggered multiple global tsunami warnings, from New Zealand to the west coasts of the United States and South America. Reverberations were felt in Mount Hood in Oregon in the US. An evacuation order was issued for Californian beaches and surge waves hit the Santa Cruz harbour, submerging boats and swamping parking lots.
“Even as far as 8000 kilometres away, on the west coast of the United States, we are seeing significant damage from this event,” said Dr Power, noting Tonga sits on the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, which is rimmed in tectonic plate boundaries, where more than 90 per cent of the world’s earthquake activity occurs.
Australia’s International Development Minister Zed Seselja said Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Ms Ardern had spoken earlier on Sunday and agreed it was important “Australia and New Zealand co-ordinate very closely in any responses.”“The Tongan government has agreed to an offer for assistance from the Australian government of a P8 surveillance flight, which we hope will be able to deploy [Monday] morning,” Mr Seselja said.
lucy_carroll bengrubb Word, 'more eruptions', is disturbing
MingGao26 lucy_carroll bengrubb 😃 Earth is cooling herself. 🌋 GretaThunberg “If it has put enough matter into the stratosphere, then we could see cooler temperatures for the next year or so,” she said. 'The Tonga-Kermadec trench... is a really active part of the world where two tectonic plates meet.'
lucy_carroll bengrubb Satellite just so happens to be passing over. Did it ever occur to you that possibly the US set it off?
lucy_carroll bengrubb Earth had a pimple.