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.
“Alarming” images taken by New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) reconnaissance flights showed an entire village destroyed on Mango island and numerous buildings missing on nearby Atata island, said the diplomat, Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie.
“People panic, people run and get injuries,” Tu’ihalangingie told Reuters. “Possibly there will be more deaths and we just pray that is not the case.”
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 5-10m-high, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Atata and Mango are between about 50 and 70km from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2300 km away in New Zealand when it erupted on Saturday.
Atata has a population of about 100 people and Mango about 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 a 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.
