The huge Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption is shedding more light on its specifics. Some aspects of the eruption are comparable to the devastation of Krakatoa in 1883.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the Tonga archipelago erupted on January 15, 2022, blanketing the nearby islands with ash. Three persons were killed. Data on the event is gradually documenting the ferocity with which the volcano actually erupted.
According to records from thousands of measuring stations around the world, the pressure wave from the explosion spread at a speed of around 1100 kilometers per hour and circled the earth at least four times within six days, according to a working group led by Robin Matoza from the University of California in Santa Barbara.
According to Matoza and colleagues, the most dominating atmospheric wave triggered by the Tonga eruption was the Lamb wave. It occurs exclusively in exceptionally powerful, explosive occurrences.
The data was compared to that of past volcanic eruptions, notably the 1883 Krakatoa eruption. The pressure wave’s amplitude was thus equal to the Krakatoa eruption and ten times greater than the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980.
The impacts of the atmospheric pressure wave were also visible at sea: it generated meteoric tsunamis all around the world, which occurred before the Pacific’s geotectonic tsunami wave.
Furthermore, the Hunga eruption produced a “remarkable” infrasound wave that has been validated internationally, as well as a boom that can be heard over 10,000 kilometers distant, according to scientists.
The eruption was the most powerful of the twenty-first century, with ash clouds reaching the stratosphere. The released particles also resulted in a lightning storm, which has never been confirmed previously.
Beginning on January 13 and ending on January 15, records from the Finnish environmental technology company Vaisala reveal 590,000 lightning bolts in three days near the eruptions.
Image Credit: TONGA GEOLOGICAL SERVICES
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