New Zealand sends flight to see damage from Pacific volcano

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s military on Monday morning was able to send a surveillance flight to Tonga to assess the extent of the damage from a huge undersea volcanic eruption.A towering ash cloud had prevented the military from launching any flights earlier to the Pacific island nation.People on Tonga described their country as looking like a moonscape as they began the task of cleaning up from the tsunami waves and ash fall caused by the eruption. Communications with the island nation remained limited after the internet was cut soon after the eruption on Saturday evening.There were no reports of injuries or deaths, although concerns remained for the fate of people on some of the smaller islands near the volcano.Meanwhile, scientists said they didn’t think the eruption would have a significant impact on the Earth’s climate.Huge volcanic eruptions can sometimes cause global cooling as sulfur dioxide is pumped into the stratosphere. It’s too early to tell how much ash was produced by the eruption because the volcanic cloud included vapor resulting from sea water interacting with the hot magma, experts said.The eruption in shallow water may be similar to a series of eruptions between 2016 and 2017 that shaped Bogoslof Island north of the Aleutian Islands, said Michelle Coombs, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory.