Tonga eruption
On 14 January 2022, a very large eruption on Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, an uninhabited volcanic island of the Tongan archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, began. Hunga Tonga is 65 km (40 mi) north of Tongatapu, the country's main island, and is part of the highly active Tonga–Kermadec Islands volcanic arc, a subduction zone extending from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji. The eruption caused tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa, Vanuatu, and along the rim of the Pacific Ocean, including damaging tsunamis in New Zealand, Japan, the United States, the Russian Far East, Chile, and Peru. At least three people were killed and many remain missing in Tonga from tsunami waves up to 15 m (49 ft). Two people drowned in Peru when a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) wave struck the coast. Preliminary data shows that the event was probably the largest volcanic eruption in the 21st century and the largest since the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
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