The threat of tsunami in the Pacific from a massive undersea volcanic eruption began to subside on Sunday, though the massive ash cloud blanketing the tiny island nation of Tonga prevented New Zealand flights to assess the damage.

Satellite images showed the spectacular eruption on Saturday night, sending a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a mushroom over the blue waters of the Pacific. The noise of the eruption was heard as far away as Alaska.

In Tonga, it caused tsunami waves to crash against the coast and send people fleeing to higher ground.

The eruption cut off the internet connection to Tonga, as friends and family around the world tried to contact relatives to find out if there were any injuries. Even government websites and other official sources of information were still out of date as of Saturday afternoon.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had yet to be any official reports of deaths or injuries in Tonga, though she warned authorities had not yet contacted some coastal areas and smaller islands.

“Communication with Tonga is still very limited. And I know it’s causing enormous anxiety for the Tongan community here,” Ardern said.

Considerable damage has been done to ships and businesses off the Tongan coast, he said. The capital, Nuku’alofa, was covered in a thick layer of volcanic dust, Ardern explained, contaminating water supplies and making clean water a vital necessity.

The authorities asked the population to wear a mask and drink bottled water due to the ash and gas expelled by the volcano, according to humanitarian agencies.

New Zealand had been unable to send a surveillance flight on Sunday because the ash cloud reached 19,000 meters (63,000 feet), Ardern said, though they hoped to try again on Monday, as well as sending supply planes and navy ships. .

One complicating factor for international aid is that Tonga has so far avoided an outbreak of COVID-19. New Zealand military personnel are fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocol established by Tonga, Ardern said.

It’s highly unusual for a volcanic eruption to affect an entire ocean basin, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, calling the spectacle “fearful and humbling.”

Tsunami waves shared damage to shipping as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to have caused widespread damage. Snider said he expected the tsunami risk in the United States and elsewhere to continue to subside.

Previous tsunami warnings were issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the Pacific coast of the United States. The United States Geological Survey estimated that the eruption had caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists point out that tsunamis generated by volcanoes and not earthquakes are relatively rare.

Two women drowned in Peru on Saturday after being swept away by “anomalous waves” on a beach on the Pacific coast, according to authorities. On another beach, waves swamped restaurants near the sea more than 10 hours after a volcanic eruption in Tonga.

In Tonga, home to some 105,000 people, videos shared on social media showed large waves crashing onto shore in coastal areas, hitting homes, a church and other buildings. A Twitter user identified as Faka’iloatonga Taumoefolau shared a video of waves crashing against the shoreline.

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