At 5:02 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2022, the most violent volcanic eruption in 138 years, say geophysicists, hit its explosive peak deep in the South Pacific-about as far off the radar as the inhabited earth gets.
Unless you live in Tonga. Then the massive Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano blast was a terrifying 40 miles away for most of the Polynesian nation's 105,000 people. An estimated 18-megaton firebomb was followed by nine cataclysmic tsunamis lifting ocean levels as high as 49 feet and laying coastal communities and isolated outer islands to ruin under an ash-choked sky. There was barely time to react.
We felt the shock waves vibrating through our bodies before the almighty bang of the eruption reached us, which sounded like the earth itself splitting open-followed by at least nine immensely powerful tsunamis coming at phenomenal speed, recounts Mary Lyn Fonua, managing editor of Tonga's news website, Matangi Tonga, who would sit through a traumatic night in the capital, Nuku'alofa, before surveying an utterly transformed main island of Tongatapu-home to 70 percent of the country's population.
Photographing the destruction the next day was like stepping into another world. Tonga's 170 islands are spread across an immense span of ocean for a collective land mass equaling about half of Oahu, HI. Fiji (Tonga's immediate neighbor) is 500 miles away. New Zealand is 1,500 miles south.
Last January, when the country's fiercest submarine volcano fully unleashed for the first time in nearly a millennium, Tonga was alone and unreachable for days before international aid arrived. Here are just a few of the harrowing stories.
NARROW ESCAPE
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June - July 2022 من Men's Journal.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June - July 2022 من Men's Journal.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Fantasy League
Inflation, war and endless political campaign ads got you down? Hollywood wants to take you far away.
The Tug Trip
Chasing grizzlies and pushing deep into coastal British Columbia aboard a uniquely Canadian touring vessel.
Death, Incorporated
How Putin's mercenary army known as the Wagner Group does the Kremlin's dirtiest work in Ukraine and in conflict zones around the world.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson
The British-born actor trades the Shire's misty mountains for a fantasy island in Amazon Prime's prequel to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Idris Elba – Been Around the Block
Superstar actor Idris Elba hits 50 in September. But we might have not seen his prime yet.
American Ruins
This country's unmatched and unlimited industrial might helped define the 20th century. But that was then, and this is now.
NICK KROLL
The comedic powerhouse and man of many voices behind Big Mouth and Human Resources returns to the big screen in the star-studded thriller Don't Worry Darling.
HAIL TERRY
Four-time Super Bowl champion, avuncular television football analyst and all-around entertainer TERRY BRADSHAW's secret to career longevity? Letting it rip.
EVOLUTION OF Z REVOLUTION
How Nissan reinvented the smart, soulful sports car.
PLUNGE RIGHT IN
Mallorca's cliff-lined coast is the peak playground for deep-water soloing-as grippingly demonstrated by the emerging sport's top climber.