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On Saturday evening 15 January, Tongans witnessed a catastrophic explosion of the volcanic vent that had grown a few metres above sea-level between the small islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai, some 50 kilometres north of their capital Nuku’alofa on the main island of Tonga, Tongatapu.

In a unique first, the rest of the world watched the tremendous explosion in real-time from the new generation of high-resolution weather satellites, which showed in devastating detail its power and scale.

Read more HERE>>

By Brian Schmidt and Richard Arculus