Assalamoalaikum, and welcome back to Orange Shots.
On the 14th of January 2022 in Tonga,
houses and trees fell to the ground.
Around 84,000 of their population
or around 80% of Tonga's population was affected.
There was suddenly a shortage of drinking water,
all communication resources were cut off.
Tonga's government declared an emergency until 13th February.
This all happened because of a tsunami.
One that left the ocean
and destroyed Tonga.
If the volcano that caused the tsunami
had erupted on land,
it could've turned into possibly the worst catastrophe in humanity.
While it was a good thing the volcano erupted in the Pacific
But it ended up affecting Tonga.
The volcano is called Hunga Ha'apai.
If I'm not pronouncing the word right, I obviously don't know how to pronounce it.
So please forgive me for that.
This is an active volcano.
This means that
there's going to be lava coming out of it.
Or if you climb the top, you'll see lava inside.
The lava oozes out of the volcano for a few years too.
This volcano's last recorded eruption
was in 2014.
This volcano was active for sure
but no one knew it would explode like a bomb one day.
If you look at the before and after pictures,
in the first picture, there's an entire mountain present on the island.
But if you look at the after pictures, you'll know that the
volcano exploded so hard, there was nothing left of it after.
The whole ground went flat.
The greenery you could see before was reduced to dirt and ash.
This goes to show how big the volcano was and how big the explosion was.
Now, let me point out one more thing.
Earthquakes don't always happen because of volcanoes.
It often has to do with the earth's tectonic plates.
Tonga is where the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates meet.
Since the Pacific plates are old,
the Australian plates, young,
the Australian plates go under the Pacific plates.
If an earthquake occurs due to the tectonic plates moving,
that can cause a tsunami as well.
What happened in the case of this volcano was:
when the volcano erupted with such intensity,
it ended up displacing a lot of water.
The water then turned into huge waves,
which then turned into a tsunami
that countries like Peru, Chile, and Australia noticed.
Tonga and Fiji were especially unlucky due to their close proximity to the volcano.
If you closely look at the satellite pictures,
you'll be able to tell how big the explosion was.
As a result,
the sulphur dioxide that came out of the volcano -
it may be a poisonous gas but it doesn't add to global warming.
In fact, it causes global cooling. So that might be a positive thing.
The negative side to this is
that the rain is going to turn poisonous,
considering there is enough concentration of this gas.
Hydroflouride and hydrochloride gases
also entered the atmosphere
and of course, there was ash.
If you look at the islands before and after photos
its greenery and buildings
all look the same.
As if they were coloured the same.
These after pictures, and this colour
is because of the volcanic ash that left the volcano,
and deposited all over Tonga.
Now, how does ash affect things?
The ash accumulated all over Tonga's water reservoirs.
Now, since this is volcanic ash,
it contains poisonous matter that could even be cancerous.
So consider all the water supply contaminated.
This led to a shortage of drinking water for Tonga's people.
An earthquake accompanies the gases and ash too,
and not only did it destroy buildings,
it led to a very bad situation for Tonga.
A tsunami's main characteristic is that when it first forms
its waves aren't as big.
They're probably around 3-3.5 meters.
These might not sound too big,
but they pack a lot of energy.
And while they may not seem significant,
when these waves reach land,
they go pretty far.
And due to the power of water,
and the power behind the waves,
they destroy every tree, building, car, they pass by.
It looks like something a bulldozer would do.
When this happened in Tonga, another problem arose:
because of the tsunami, ash everywhere, ash clouds, lightning,
all the communication resources were cut off.
Tonga's under-sea cables broke and it was suddenly disconnected from the world.
Because of this, Tonga went through a lot just to receive aid.
There's ash in the air, and if you've seen aeroplane crash investigations,
you would know that ash accumulates in aeroplane engines
rendering them useless.
So planes were obviously out of the question
because again, if you looked at the satellite imagery,
you'd notice the size of the ash cloud.
It was a humongous cloud.
You simply cannot fly planes or helicopters in this atmosphere.
The last remaining solution is ships and
ships can actually go there,
but there's that same problem,
the tsunami destroyed all the buildings and structures when it hit the coast.
It damaged them, at the very least.
So where would they dock all the ships?
So you can really imagine the direness of Tonga's situation.
With no food, drinking water,
no source of communication.
The rest of the world completely oblivious to Tonga's situation.
With only satellite images to work with, things would be very difficult.
The rest of the world (after finding out) watching helplessly.
But the good thing is, after so many days,
with the clouds dissipating and the ash settling,
the rest of the world has started sending all sorts of aid towards Tonga.
Tonga's recovery is not going to be easy,
but if nature can be so destructive, it can be constructive, too.
Our earth, sun, moon, and stars; all of them were the byproducts of destruction.
The system of nature works very differently.
And it has always been like this, whatever we considered destroyed
regenerated.
Tonga will also recover.
But no one knows how long it will take.
Nonetheless, this certain sea and volcano combination
is very, very deadly.
Tsunamis have hit Japan, India, and Indonesia.
If we also go back a century, Gwadar and Karachi were also hit by a tsunami.
This tsunami was the latest one.
So, nature keeps reminding us humans
that it is out of our control.
Nature is very powerful.
In this case, the combination of a volcanic eruption
and the water, the sea, the wind, the waves, ash, clouds,
and everything else in between
caused a fairly disastrous situation for Tonga.
We really hope Tonga recovers soon, in sha ALLAH.
As for the latest news, they're working on the communication end of things.
Lots of footage has started emerging from Tonga.
And now you can really see
how badly Tonga suffered.
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If you'd like to see the deepest trench near the Philippines;
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I have that video linked here.
Until my next video, take good care of yourselves,
always remember me in your prayers.
With tons of love to my Orange Shots family,
and to-be Orange Shots family.
This is me Zahid Nisar.
You're watching Orange Shots.
And until my next video, ALLAH Hafiz.