In total, according to the authorities, 85% of the population of this country a little over 100,000 would have been affected by the volcanic eruption or the tsunami that followed.
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You sometimes have to compose their number more than a dozen times before finally hear their voices. Chopped. Deaf. Distant. On January 15, when the violent eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano caused a tsunami on the Tonga Islands, the underwater cable connecting the Polynesian archipelago to the rest of the world was damaged, interrupting instantly all telephone communications. and internet. After five days of a quasi-total silence, the Digicel operator was able to partially restore his telephone network. Since then, connections remain fragile, erratic, but they allow more and more Tongans to testify to the drama they have experienced.
All their stories are starting with noise, terrifying, explosions. “There have been several, more and more strong, to the point of leaving us half deaf, says Marian Kupu, a journalist. We realized immediately that he was doing something serious, that he Should run, get away. “Outside, rollers are already formed on the ocean, which brutally changes aspect. The young woman who lives in a waterfront village a few kilometers from the capital, Nuku’alofa, jumps in a car to move away from the coast with her family. As it, a whole country is moving inland in a gigantic bottling.
polluted water, crops destroyed
“It was then that the sky became black and it was rained. Not water, but ashes, pebbles. It was apocalyptic. We did not see anything anymore. Through our windshield, “says Tululu Mafuaiolotele, a former police officer. With his wife, his son, his cousins, nephews and nieces, he manages to find refuge at his in-law. There, without electricity, without telephone, it clings like a life buoy on the radio 90fm, which will never stop emitting. “These are the only information that came to us. Fortunately they were there. It was the ones who immediately warned us of the risk of tsunami.” At the seaside, everyone did not have time to flee. Some have had other choices than climbing trees to escape waves that reached up to 15 meters high. By miracle, there were only three deaths.
“We did not realize immediately about the magnitude of the damage. Only the timber, when we finally decided to go home that we realized. Everything was covered with a Thick ash coat, even the animals. And above all, the landscape was upside down: there were electric poles on the ground, uprooted coconut palms, houses in the wrong side of the road. Since then we spend our time cleaning ” Ready again Marian Kupu, who, for more than twenty-four hours, remained caulously at his brother-in-law, not going out, terrorized at the idea of inhaling this gray rain that did not end up falling .
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