World

WELLINGTON — A volcano that exploded in the Pacific island nation of Tonga has almost disappeared from view, new images revealed Tuesday, with swathes of the country smothered in grey dust or damaged by a tsunami.

The volcano erupted 30 kilometres into the air on Saturday and deposited ash, gas and acid rain across a large area of the Pacific.

In the tsunami that followed, waves in Tonga rose up to 15 metres, its government said in a statement.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said three people were killed, citing Tonga’s government.

Three days after the eruption, the outside world is still struggling to understand the scale of the disaster using patchy satellite phone connections, surveillance flights and satellite images.

While power and local phone systems have been partially restored, international communications remain severed and the Internet is down.

Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday showed that where most of the volcanic structure stood above sea level a few days ago, there is now just open sea.

Only two relatively small volcanic islands were still visible above sea level after the eruption.

New Zealand released aerial images taken from a surveillance flight the previous day, revealing a tree-lined coast transformed from green to grey by the volcanic fallout.

Wrecked buildings were visible on the foreshore alongside others that appeared intact.

Volcanic ash blanketed island fields, images from an Australian Defence Force P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft showed.

Shipping containers had been knocked over like dominoes at a port on the main island.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement on Tuesday that its liaison officer in Tonga, Dr Yutaro Setoya, was “channelling communication between UN agencies and the Tongan government”.

“With international phone lines and Internet connectivity still down, Dr Setoya’s satellite phone is one of the few ways to get information,” it said.

The officer has “literally been standing outside from dawn until long into the night for the past few days to ensure that the phone can reach the satellite signal”, said the WHO’s health cluster coordinator for the Pacific, Sean Casey.

The UN health agency said around 100 houses had been damaged, with 50 destroyed on Tonga’s main island of Tongatapu.

Between five and 10 centimetres of ash and dust had fallen on Tongatapu, the OCHA said.

The WHO said the ash and dust were “raising concerns of air pollution and potential contamination of food & water supplies”.

“The gov’t has advised the public to remain indoors, use masks if going out & to drink bottled water due to the ashfall,” it tweeted.

Distress beacon 

Australia’s HMAS Adelaide and New Zealand’s HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa were ordered to be ready for a possible aid request from Tonga, which lies three to five days’ sailing away.

The Red Cross said it was sending 2,516 water containers.

New Zealand has allocated NZ$1 million ($680,000) in humanitarian assistance and the United States has pledged $100,000.

France, which has territories in the South Pacific, pledged to help the people of Tonga’s “most urgent needs”.

The OCHA said a signal had been detected from a distress beacon on a low-lying island, Mango.

The UN agency said surveillance flights had confirmed “substantial property damage” on Mango, home to about 30 people, and another island, Fonoi.

Images released by the United Nations Satellite Centre showed the impact of the disaster on the island of Nomuka, one of the closest to the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano.

The satellite centre said that of 104 structures analysed in a cloud-free area, 41 structures were damaged.

Tonga’s airport was working to remove volcanic ash from the capital’s runway. Australia said the ash must be cleared before it can land a C-130 military plane with aid.

One of the two confirmed dead was Angela Glover, a 50-year-old who ran a stray animals charity and was reported missing by her husband after the tsunami hit.

“Earlier today my family was sadly informed that the body of my sister Angela has been found,” her brother Nick Eleini said after being given the news by the husband, James Glover.

“James was able to cling on to a tree for quite a long time, but Angela was unable to do so and was washed away with the dogs,” he told The Guardian newspaper.

A 65-year-old woman from Mango and 49-year-old man from Nomuka Island were also killed

Communications cut 

Even when relief efforts get under way, they may be complicated by COVID-19 entry restrictions.

The eruption — one of the largest in decades — was recorded around the world and heard as far away as Alaska, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

In Peru, authorities sealed off three beaches Monday after they were hit by an oil spill blamed on freak waves caused by the eruption.

The blast severed an undersea communications cable between Tonga and Fiji that operators said would take up to two weeks to repair.

“We’re getting sketchy information, but it looks like the cable has been cut,” Southern Cross Cable Network’s Networks Director Dean Veverka told AFP.

WELLINGTON — Overseas Tongans waited anxiously for news of loved ones on Monday after a volcanic eruption and tsunami severed communications with the Pacific kingdom.

Concerns among the 85,000-strong Tongan community in New Zealand were heightened by news it could be two weeks before communications are restored.

Besides leaving people in the dark about the fate of family, the internet cut threatened to hurt Tongans reliant on money transfers from relatives overseas.

“I think the worst part is the blackout and the fact that we know nothing,” said Filipo Motulalo, a New Zealand-based journalist with Pacific Media Network.

“There is no communication,” he added.

“Our home is among those close to the area that was flooded already so we don’t know how much damage there is.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said officials had made satellite contact with the country’s high commission in Nuku’alofa after the powerful Hunga-Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption.

The blast triggered a tsunami that swept Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

New Zealand was informed that there had been no reports of death or injury in the capital, but there was “significant” damage in some areas.

‘Hopeful’ -

“I would say we’re anxious, not fearful,” said the Auckland Tongan Community secretary, Kennedy Maeakafa Fakana’ana’a-ki-Fualu.

“We’re hopeful everyone is alright. We accept there is a problem with the internet but we hope for the best,” he told AFP.

Fakana’ana’a-ki-Fualu, who is arranging for containers of relief supplies to be sent to Tonga, said a cable fault preventing Internet access was a serious issue for families reliant on funds sent by the Tongan community in New Zealand.

“That will be a problem and we will have to look at alternatives,” the community secretary said, adding that he expected the Tongan government, with support from New Zealand and Australia, “will be able to do something to help out”.

Saturday’s powerful eruption was heard as far away as Alaska and Finland and triggered a tsunami that swept through coastal houses in Tonga, damaging infrastructure and dumping boats and boulders on shore.

“We pray God will help our country at this sad moment. We hope everybody is safe,” Maikeli Atiola, the Secretary of the Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Auckland, told Radio New Zealand.

Air New Zealand, meanwhile, has postponed a repatriation flight to Tonga because of the volcanic ash clouds from the eruption.

The flight had been scheduled to leave Auckland this Thursday.

WELLINGTON — A massive volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves around the Pacific caused "significant damage" to the island nation's capital and smothered it in dust, but the full extent was not apparent with communications still cut off on Sunday.

The eruption on Saturday was so powerful it was recorded around the world, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

The capital Nuku’alofa suffered “significant” damage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding there had been no reports of injury or death but a full assessment was not yet possible with communication lines down.

“The tsunami has had a significant impact on the foreshore on the northern side of Nuku’alofa with boats and large boulders washed ashore,” Ardern said after contact with the New Zealand embassy in Tonga.

“Nuku’alofa is covered in a thick film of volcanic dust but otherwise conditions are calm and stable.”

Tonga was in need of water supplies, she said: “The ash cloud has caused contamination.”

There has been no word on damage in the outer islands and New Zealand will send an air force reconnaissance aircraft “as soon as atmospheric conditions allow”, the country’s Defence Force tweeted.

“We’re working hard to see how we can assist our Pacific neighbours after the volcanic eruption near Tonga.”

Tonga has also accepted Canberra’s offer to send a surveillance flight, Australia’s foreign office said, adding it is also immediately prepared to supply “critical humanitarian supplies”.

The United States was “deeply concerned for the people of Tonga”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, pledging support for the island nation.

A 1.2 metre wave swept ashore in the Tongan capital with residents reporting they had fled to higher ground, leaving behind flooded houses, some with structural damage, as small stones and ash fell from the sky.

“It was massive, the ground shook, our house was shaking. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby,” resident Mere Taufa told the Stuff news website on Saturday.

She said water filled their home minutes later and she watched the wall of a neighbouring house collapse.

“We just knew straight away it was a tsunami. Just water gushing into our home,” Taufa said.

“You could just hear screams everywhere, people screaming for safety, for everyone to get to higher ground.”

Tonga’s King Tupou VI was reported to have been evacuated from the Royal Palace in Nuku’alofa and taken by police convoy to a villa well away from the coastline.

Dramatic satellite images showed the long, rumbling eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano spew smoke and ash in the air, with a thunderous roar heard 10,000 kilometres away in Alaska.

The eruption triggered tsunamis across the Pacific with waves of 1.74 metres measured in Chanaral, Chile, more than 10,000 kilometres away, and smaller waves seen along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico.

In California, the city of Santa Cruz was hit by flooding due to a tidal surge generated by the tsunami, videos retweeted by the US National Weather Service showed.

Peru closed 22 ports as a precaution while waves of around 1.2 metres hit along Japan’s Pacific coast.

By 0300 GMT on Sunday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii said the threat from the eruption had passed.

The US Geological Survey recorded Saturday’s eruption as equivalent to a 5.8-magnitude earthquake at zero depth.

The volcano’s eruption lasted at least eight minutes and sent plumes of gas, ash and smoke several kilometres into the air.

New Zealand scientist Marco Brenna, a senior lecturer at Otago University’s School of Geology, described the impact of the eruption as “relatively mild” but said another eruption with a much bigger impact could not be ruled out.

The eruption was so powerful it was even heard in Alaska, the UAF Geophysical Institute tweeted.

“A part of the pressure signal in Alaska was in the audible range. The very large signal is not that surprising considering the scale of the eruption, but the audible aspect is fairly unique,” it said, citing Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist David Fee.

“He recalls only a couple other volcanic eruptions doing something like this: Krakatau and Novarupta,” it tweeted. This referred to the 19th-century eruption of Indonesia’s Krakatau, and Alaska’s Novarupta, the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

The Fife weather station in Scotland tweeted it was “just incredible to think of the power that can send a shockwave around the world” after the eruptions produced a jump in its air pressure graph.

Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai, which lies about 65 kilometres north of Nuku’alofa, has a history of volatility.

In recent years, it breached sea level during a 2009 eruption while in 2015 it spewed so many large rocks and ash into the air that when they settled a new island had formed 2 kilometres long by 1 kilometre wide and 100 metres high.

KYIV — Ukraine said Sunday it had "evidence" that Russia was behind a massive cyberattack that knocked out key government websites this past week, while Microsoft warned the hack could be far worse than first thought.

Tensions are at an all-time high between Ukraine and Russia, which Kyiv accuses of having massed troops on its border ahead of a possible invasion. Some analysts fear the cyberattack could be the prelude to a military attack.

On Friday, Washington also accused Russia of sending saboteurs trained in explosives to stage an incident that could be the pretext to invade its pro-Western neighbour.

"All the evidence points to Russia being behind the cyberattack", the Ukrainian digital transformation ministry said in a statement. "Moscow is continuing to wage a hybrid war."

The ministry urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying their personal information was protected.

The purpose of the attack, it added, "is not only to intimidate society. But to also destabilise the situation in Ukraine, halting the work of the public sector and crushing Ukrainians' trust in the authorities".

The Kremlin earlier rejected the claims and said there was no evidence Russia was behind the attack.

"We have nothing to do with it. Russia has nothing to do with these cyberattacks," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told CNN.

"Ukrainians are blaming everything on Russia, even their bad weather in their country," he said in English.

Kyiv said late Friday it had uncovered preliminary clues that Russian security services could have been behind the cyberattack.

Ukraine’s SBU security service said the attacks in the early hours of Friday had targeted a total of 70 government websites.

The website of the foreign ministry for a time displayed a message in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish that said “be afraid and expect the worst”.

Within hours of the breach, the security service said access to most affected sites had been restored and that the fallout was minimal.

Microsoft warning 

But Microsoft warned Sunday that the cyberattack could prove destructive and affect more organisations than initially feared.

The US software giant said it continued to analyse the malware and warned it could render government digital infrastructure inoperable.

“The malware, which is designed to look like ransomware but lacking a ransom recovery mechanism, is intended to be destructive and designed to render targeted devices inoperable rather than to obtain a ransom,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

Microsoft said it had not so far identified a culprit but warned that the number of affected organisations could prove larger than initially thought.

“Our investigation teams have identified the malware on dozens of impacted systems and that number could grow as our investigation continues,” it said.

“These systems span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organisations, all based in Ukraine. We do not know the current stage of this attacker’s operational cycle or how many other victim organisations may exist in Ukraine or other geographic locations.”

‘Language of force’ 

Senior government official Viktor Zhora told AFP on Friday that the hack was one of the “biggest” cyberattacks of the past few years.

Russia has amassed tanks, artillery and tens of thousands of troops near the border of Ukraine and demanded guarantees that its neighbour will never join NATO.

Senior Russian and Western officials held three rounds of talks in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna over the past week but there was no breakthrough.

By the end of the week, Washington warned that Moscow could stage a false flag operation within weeks to precipitate an invasion.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv and its Western partners were working on a broad “package to contain Russia” that would include “painful” new sanctions and moves to ramp up defence cooperation with the West.

Speaking to Germany’s Bild newspaper, Kuleba said Putin “only understands the language of force”.

“If Putin wants to know why neighbours are seeking to join NATO he only needs to look in the mirror,” he said in remarks released by the foreign ministry on Sunday.

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga — Frightened Tongans fled to higher ground on Saturday after a massive volcanic eruption, heard in neighbouring countries, triggered tsunami warnings across the South Pacific.

"A 1.2 metre tsunami wave has been observed at Nuku'alofa," Australia's Bureau of Meteorology tweeted.

The latest eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano came just a few hours after a separate Friday tsunami warning was lifted due to the eruption.

Mere Taufa said she was in her house getting ready for dinner when the volcano erupted.

"It was massive, the ground shook, our house was shaking. It came in waves. My younger brother thought bombs were exploding nearby," Taufa told the Stuff news website.

She said water filled their home minutes later and she saw the wall of a neighbouring house collapse.

"We just knew straight away it was a tsunami. Just water gushing into our home.

"You could just hear screams everywhere, people screaming for safety, for everyone to get to higher ground."

Tonga's King Tupou VI was reported to have been evacuated from the Royal Palace in Nuku'alofa and taken by a police convoy to a villa well away from the coastline.

The initial eruption lasted at least eight minutes and sent plumes of gas, ash and smoke several kilometres into the air.

Residents in coastal areas were urged to head for higher ground.

The eruption was so intense it was heard as "loud thunder sounds" in Fiji more than 800 kilometres away, officials in Suva said.

Fijian officials warned residents to cover water collection tanks in case of acidic rain fall.

Victorina Kioa of the Tonga Public Service Commission said Friday that people should “keep away from areas of warning which are low-lying coastal areas, reefs and beaches”.

The head of Tonga Geological Services Taaniela Kula urged people to stay indoors, wear a mask if they were outside and cover rainwater reservoirs and rainwater harvesting systems.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a “tsunami advisory” for American Samoa, saying there was a threat of “sea level fluctuations and strong ocean currents that could be a hazard along beaches”.

Similar warnings were issued by authorities in New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu and Australia — where authorities said a swathe of coastline including Sydney could be hit by tsunami waves.

People in surrounding New South Wales state were “advised to get out of the water and move away from the immediate water’s edge”.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano sits on an uninhabited island about 65 kilometres north of the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa.

BEIJING — An Omicron case has been detected in Beijing, officials in the Chinese capital said Saturday, as the country battles multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible coronavirus variant ahead of the Winter Olympics.

The announcement comes a day after the southern city of Zhuhai imposed travel restrictions on residents as a mass testing drive uncovered seven infections.

Millions of people across the country have been ordered to stay home in recent weeks, with scores of domestic flights cancelled and factories shut down, as the country attempts to control a spate of small coronavirus outbreaks, including several from the Omicron variant, ahead of next month's Beijing Olympics.

One locally transmitted Omicron case was discovered in the capital’s Haidian district, home to many tech company headquarters, city official Pang Xinghuo said at a press conference, a rare breach of Beijing’s tightly-guarded COVID-19 defences.

Authorities are testing the other occupants of the patient’s residential compound and office building, and have restricted access to 17 locations linked to infected person, Pang said.

Beijing has long barred people from parts of the country that have reported cases, while requiring all arrivals to provide recent COVID-19 tests.

Residents have also been urged in recent weeks not to leave the city for the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.

On Friday, the coastal city of Zhuhai, which borders the gambling hub Macau, said Omicron had been detected in one mildly ill and six asymptomatic patients.

Zhuhai officials have asked residents to avoid leaving the city “unless necessary”, with those who are required to show negative COVID test results within the past 24 hours.

The city had launched mass testing for its population of 2.4 million people on Friday after a COVID case was detected in neighbouring Zhongshan earlier in the week.

Businesses including beauty salons, card rooms, gyms and cinemas were ordered to close on Thursday, with officials announcing the suspension of public bus routes in parts of the city.

China has kept COVID-19 cases relatively low throughout the pandemic with its zero-tolerance strategy of immediately ordering mass testing and strict lockdowns when infections are detected.

Harsher lockdowns have been imposed on China’s smaller cities where millions of people have been ordered to stay home and get tested, while economic hubs such as Shanghai and Beijing have locked down and tested only specific neighbourhoods in more targeted efforts.

But the fast-spreading Omicron variant has tested that strategy in recent weeks, appearing in the port city of Tianjin close to Beijing before spreading to the central city of Anyang.

National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng told reporters on Saturday that the country faced a “twofold challenge” from both the Delta and Omicron strains of the virus.

He warned that regions that had not yet seen outbreaks “must not relax” their prevention measures and “strengthen risk auditing”.

The country reported 104 domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases on Saturday.

KABUL — The Taliban have dismissed about 3,000 members accused of abusive practices from its hardline Islamist movement in a widespread “vetting process” launched since coming to power, an official said on Saturday.

The Taliban took back control of Afghanistan in August after a 20-year insurgency against former US-backed governments and NATO foreign forces.

Promising a softer rule to their 1996-2001 regime, the Taliban government launched a commission to identify members who were flouting the movement’s regulations.

“They were giving a bad name to the Islamic Emirate. They were removed in this vetting process so that we can build a clean army and police force in the future,” the head of the panel Latifullah Hakimi in the defence ministry told AFP.

So far about 2,840 members had been dismissed, he said.

“They were involved in corruption, drugs and were intruding in people’s private lives. Some also had links with Daesh,” Hakimi said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Taliban fighters have been accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings of former security force members, despite an order from the movement’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada of an amnesty.

The regional chapter of the extremist group has emerged as a major security challenge to the hardline Islamist administration, often targeting officials in gun and bomb attacks in Kabul and other cities.

Hakimi said those suspended were from 14 provinces and the process to “filter out” such members will continue in other provinces.

Since seizing power the Taliban authorities have restricted the freedoms of Afghans, especially women.

Women public sector workers have been largely blocked from returning to work, while many secondary schools have not reopened for girls.

Long distance trips for women who are not accompanied by a close male relative have also been banned.