Tonga volcano eruption was far more powerful than Hiroshima atomic bomb blast, Nasa says
- The explosion ‘released hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy’ as the Hiroshima blast, according to Nasa
- Some 105,000 residents have been affected after the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted 10 days ago
The recent eruption of the underwater volcano near Tonga was several hundred times stronger than the explosive force of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima, US space agency Nasa said.
“This is a preliminary estimate, but we think the amount of energy released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between 4 to 18 megatons of TNT,” Nasa scientist Jim Garvin said in a statement.
“That number is based on how much was removed, how resistant the rock was, and how high the eruption cloud was blown into the atmosphere at a range of velocities.”
The explosion “released hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy” as the Hiroshima blast, according to Nasa, referring to one of two atomic bombs detonated by the United States in its war against Japan in 1945.
The underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, just 65 kilometres north of Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa, erupted 10 days ago, sending a gigantic cloud of ash and gas into the sky.
An estimated 84 per cent of the approximately 105,000 residents on all of Tonga’s islands have been affected by the ashfall from the eruptions and the subsequent tsunami, the waves of which reached as far away as Alaska.
Meanwhile, A Covid-19 outbreak on an Australian warship on Tuesday threatened to disrupt Tonga eruption aid efforts, as survivors of the volcanic blast described how they fled with only the clothes on their backs.
