Undersea Volcano Erupts In Pacific, Islanders Rush To Escape Tsunami

Satellite images showed a huge eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom above the blue Pacific waters.New Zealand’s military said it was monitoring the situation and remained on standby, ready to assist if asked.The Tonga Meteorological Services said a tsunami warning was declared for all of the archipelago, and data from the Pacific tsunami center said waves of 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) were detected.A Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka’iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore.“Can literally hear the volcano eruption, sounds pretty violent,” he wrote, adding in a later post: “Raining ash and tiny pebbles, darkness blanketing the sky.”The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions.Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island in recent days after a new volcanic vent there began erupting in late December.Satellite images captured by the company show how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.“The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall,” Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.Following Saturday’s eruption, residents in Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast were advised to move away from the coastline to higher ground and to pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.“We don’t issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we’ve done - I’m not sure when the last time was - but it really isn’t an everyday experience,” Snider said.He said the waves slamming ashore in Hawaii were just under the criteria for a more serious tsunami warning.“It looks like everything will stay below the warning level, but it’s difficult to predict because this is a volcanic eruption, and we’re set up to measure earthquake or seismic-driven sea waves,” Snider said.The first waves to hit the continental United States measured about 33 centimeters 1 foot in Nikolski, Alaska and 59 centimeters (1.9 feet) in Adak, Alaska. The National Weather Service tweeted there were “no significant concerns about inundation.” Strong rip currents were possible, however, and officials warned people to stay out of the water.On California’s central coast, the National Weather Service reported tsunami waves up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) and flooding in beach parking lots at Port San Luis.