There is little news from Tonga. That worries me. You know how it is, when something like this happens communications are so messed up that the death count can go way up as teams get to the most-impacted areas.
Isn’t it remarkable that in this day and age a disaster can cut off help for so long? It just sort of shows you the power of nature I suppose.
The satellite images show widespread damage. I fear this will be very bad indeed.
Sorry, but this forum is for stuff “I must share.”
Yes - i find it surprising that we can see through 13 billion light years of space
but can’t get a signal through an ash cloud.
Surely there’s some types of signal that could get through ?
I went to YouTube for footage. The newscaster in New York cut to a newscaster in London. I suppose the Fiji bureau was cut as a budget measure.
Volcanic “Ash” isn’t actually like the ash you get from burning wood as in a forest fire. It is pulverized rock. It is very dense. In fact, people breathing it can die when it clocks their lungs.
On the news this morning they were saying the main island has been damaged mainly from ashfall, and to a lesser extent from tsunamis. New Zealand is going to send a plane to the main airport to help determine what resources are needed from the outside world, and where to deploy them, as soon as they can clear ash from the runway. I cannot say how accurate all this is at the moment, but I am sure in the coming days we will be hearing and seeing a lot more, and I hope it’s not all horrible.
Much of the world’s data transmission is still done through physical cables, and that includes a huge network of undersea cables that transmit the bulk of global internet traffic.
By any definition Tonga is isolated and thus only had one undersea communication cable linking it to the rest of the world. That cable was severed by the eruption.
Would Sat Phones work? I would hope that someone would have one – any ham radio operators on Tonga?
Brian
They are getting some communication out, it’s not completely cut off. But they also had power outages as well.
Keep in mind that power is almost certainly out in Tonga, which might make operating radio equipment somewhere between difficult and impossible.
A satellite phone or uplink running on batteries might work, but as pointed out, volcanic ash is dense enough that it might cause a problem. Also, all sorts of weird electrical stuff can happen around an erupting volcano (hence the reason you can often see lightning during an eruption) that can interfere with radio. Finally, immediate survival may be of such pressing concern that communication with the outside world may not be top on the list (I’d expect it to be fairly high up, though)
We’ll get more information, just not immediately.
The other issue is they don’t want a bunch of relief workers coming in and spreading COVID, so on the ground they might not be able to get an accurate picture of the damage yet.
The UN World Food Programme typically sets up communications within hours, and also arranges immediate food and water and other survival items.
Yes there has been some communication by satphone.
Volcanic ash also plays merry hell with airplane engines so flying stuff in and out (including communication) is problematical AF. Back when Mt St Helens blew its top a coworker had her Cessna engine replaced because it was up in Portland being rebuilt at the time and got so much ash in it they couldn’t rebuild it.
I understand that many questions about the situation in Tonga cannot yet be answered. But the coverage I read (mainly in the Guardian and the NY Times) barely even touched on “Here’s what we don’t know, and here’s why we don’t know it.”
Part of the problem here is that Tonga is so far away from most of the rest of the world. Australia and New Zealand are sending ships, but it’s estimated that will take 3-4 days and they’re the nearest major nations. Flying in and out may or may not be feasible depending on what the volcano is doing.
Initial reports from fly-overs: not as bad as was feared.
Yeah, they are probably counting the however many hours to re-establish telephone and internet from when they actually get there.
Their web page does not atm give any info beyond what has already been posted in this thread and a generic statement that they are working on it, though updating a web page minute by minute is (I hope!) not at the top of anyone’s to-do list.
“Initial reports from fly-overs: not as bad as was feared.”
We will see. I would be happy to be wrong.
Ash can screw up jet engines pretty well, but don’t they put air filters on piston engines?
I watched the local news in DFW every morning since it happened. I’ve learned that the Dallas Cowboys played an important game and lost. The Dallas Cowboys coach talked about the important game they lost. The Dallas Cowboys practiced very hard and they showed file footage of Dallas Cowboys throwing balls and pretending to tackle large cushioned metal things. One of the Dallas Cowboys missed an important catch (or kick, or something). One of the Dallas Cowboys posted a mean tweet about something. One of the Dallas Cowboys later posted a nicer tweet about something. Another of the Dallas Cowboys didn’t like the first Dallas Cowboy’s tweet. The coach of the Dallas Cowboys said something about a tweet (maybe the same one?). The coach of the Dallas Cowboys has plans to not lose important games any more. And something is changing about something at the Dallas Cowboy’s practice field (or building or something).
The only thing I know for certain about the Tonga event is that the Dallas Cowboys were not affected by it – if they had been, it would have been the lead story all week. As of yesterday, I’ve not seen a single mention of the Tonga event on local news. Not one.