Tonga runway cleared for aid flights

WELLINGTON－Tonga finished removing a thick coat of ash from an international runway on Wednesday after days of painstaking effort, clearing the way for desperately needed emergency aid to arrive in the isolated and disaster-stricken nation.

The United Nations' crisis coordinator Jonathan Veitch told Agence France-Presse that the runway on the Pacific kingdom's main island, once buried in five to 10 centimeters of volcanic ash, was again operational.

It is "cleared but not in use yet", he said, adding that Tonga could receive much-stalled flights from Australia and New Zealand from Thursday.

However, the country still faces a month of crippled international communications following violent volcanic eruptions and tsunami.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted 30 kilometers into the air on Saturday, sending ash, gas and acid rain across a large area of the Pacific.

It released an enormous pressure wave that traversed the planet, traveling at a supersonic speed of about 1,200 kilometers per hour, said New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

In the tsunami that followed, waves in Tonga rose up to 15 meters in some areas, said the Tongan government in a statement.

Three people were killed and "a number" were injured. The Tongan government also called the volcano explosion "an unprecedented disaster".

The ashfall and tsunami affected more than 100,000 people－virtually the entire population in the small Pacific island nation, said the United States Agency for International Development in an update, quoting the Tonga Red Cross Society.

Australia and New Zealand have their military transport C-130 aircraft ready to fly when ash has been removed from the main island.

Ash particles pose a threat to modern jet aircraft, including melting and accumulating in the engines.

Two New Zealand navy vessels were scheduled to arrive in Tonga on Friday carrying critical water supplies for the Pacific island nation reeling from the disaster.

The Red Cross said its teams in Tonga had confirmed that salt water from the tsunami and volcanic ash were polluting the drinking water sources of tens of thousands of people.

2G quick fix

Tonga has been virtually cut off from the outside world since the volcanic blast broke an undersea communications cable, which may remain severed for weeks.

"US cable company SubCom advises it will take at least four weeks for Tonga's cable connection to be repaired," said New Zealand's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

Mobile phone network provider Digicel is using a local satellite dish on the main island to quickly restore domestic 2G calls, said New Zealand's high commission in a statement.

The rest of the world has been relying on patchy satellite phone connections, surveillance flights and satellite images to measure the full scale of the Tongan disaster.

The government has advised the public to remain indoors, use masks if going out and drink bottled water due to the ashfall.

Even when relief efforts get under way, it 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 US.

Agencies - Xinhua