Water crisis looms for Tonga
Print Edition
Two New Zealand navy vessels will arrive in Tonga tomorrow 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.
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.
The Red Cross said its teams in Tonga had confirmed that salt water from the tsunami and volcanic ash were polluting the drinking water.
“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 liters of water, along with other supplies, and had the capacity to produce another 70,000 liters a day.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted about 65 kilometers from the Tongan capital with a blast heard 2,300km 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 Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
China said it would send help including water and food when the airport opened.
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