(ANSA) - ROME, JANUARY 15 - After a powerful eruption of the submarine Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai, the alarmsunami went off 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 anomalous waves crashing on 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 have 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 at the Suva capital said.
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