After a powerful eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai underwater volcano, the tsunami warning was triggered in a large area of the Pacific that includes the kingdom of Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand.
The BBC reports it.
Videos posted on social media from Tonga showed rogue waves crashing over a church and several houses.
Witnesses said a shower of ash was falling on the capital, Nuku'alofa.
Residents were asked to move to higher ground.
Plumes of gas, smoke and ash pouring from the volcano reached 20km into the sky, the Tonga Geological Survey said.
The eruption, the latest in a series, lasted eight minutes and was so violent that it was heard in Fiji, more than 800km from Tonga, officials in the capital Suva said.