Tonga Volcano Deadlier Than Hiroshima Blast
Washington, Jan 25: The volcano which recently erupted near Tonga was hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima nuclear explosion in Japan, the media reported on Tuesday citing NASA.
Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the volcano released “hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion,” one of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan by US during WWII.
The Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano erupted on January 15.
Garvin, on NASA’s Earth Observatory website, said: “This is a preliminary estimate but we think the amount of energy released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between 4 to 18 megatons of TNT.”
According to NASA, Mount St. Helens in 1980 released 24 megatons of energy and Krakatoa in 1883 released 200 megatons, which was one of the biggest volcano eruptions in history.
The eruption near Tonga sent volcanic material surging as high as 40 km into the atmosphere and triggered tsunami waves up to 49 feet high that hit parts of the archipelago including the Pacific nation’s main island, CNN reported.
At least three people were killed due to eruption and tsunami, which also damaged hundreds of homes and affected the communication systems of the islands. The volcanic cloud covered almost all of the country’s roughly 170 islands and affected the population of over 100,000Â according to CNN’s report.
