Three flights from Australia arrived in Tonga on Saturday, bringing food, water, medical supplies, and telecommunications equipment as the Pacific island recovers from an underwater volcano explosion and tsunami.
Other countries’ planes, such as those from New Zealand and Japan, have also delivered much-needed aid to the Tongans, according to Zed Seselja, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific.
After the major airport runway was cleansed of ash blasted when the adjacent Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted a week ago, the first such relief arrived on Thursday. The explosion also triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami, which wrecked New Zealand boats and spilled oil as far as Peru.
“Obviously, the people of Tonga are going through a really terrible moment. “The feedback I received on the ground today is that many individuals have been relocated,” Seselja told reporters in Canberra.
Cleanup activities were going well, he said, with Tongan government and military authorities cooperating.
He stated that ships from the United States and the United Kingdom were on their way. The HMAS Adelaide, an Australian naval ship with helicopters, engineers, and a 40-bed hospital, was also dispatched. The ship has the ability to generate electricity as well as purify water.
Post Your Comments