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According to media reports, the submarine volcano of Hong Aha Apai Island, located about 65 kilometers north of Nuku'alofa, erupted for the second time on the afternoon of the 15th, and the ash column was about 5 kilometers in diameter and 20 kilometers high, shrouded over the volcano. The whole of Tonga and the world is missing. It also caused 230,000 emergency evacuations in Japan.
It is reported that the scale of the volcanic eruption is very large, and the energy released is about 1,000 times the power of the atomic bomb thrown by the United States to Hiroshima.
So, the question is, will Tonga be the first country to be engulfed by volcanoes?
0 1 Pompeii was buried by a volcano
Let's start with Pompeii, which was historically buried by a volcano.
Pompeii is an ancient city in the Campania region of the southwest corner of Italy, about 240 kilometers from Rome.
Pompeii became the second largest city after the ancient Roman city in BC. It used to be very bustling. Pompeii was home to the Temple of the Sun, the Colosseum, the magnificent Roman Theater, the Virtuoso Hall, the quirky ancient steam baths and numerous shops and entertainment venues, and Pompeii attracted many rich merchants and aristocrats of the city-states around the Mediterranean.
Unfortunately, Pompeii is next to an active volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Mount Vesuvius is located about 11 km southeast of the Italian city of Naples and 1277 m above sea level.
The ancient Romans of the time did not care about the existence of volcanoes. The volcano is flanked by green crops, and the plains are dotted with lemon and orange groves, as well as vineyards and other orchards. However, they never expected that this "extinct volcano" was brewing a devastating catastrophe.
On February 8, 62 AD, a powerful earthquake destroyed many of Pompeii's buildings, but people quickly rebuilt it. However, on August 24, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted. Ash, rubble and mud inundated the entire Pompeii, and the most prosperous city of the Roman Empire disappeared completely within 18 hours of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. At the same time, more than 20,000 ancient Roman residents in the city were buried under volcanic ash. Volcanic ash, about 5.6 meters thick, mercilessly wiped Pompeii off the earth.
The city of Pompeii was only discovered by archaeologists in 1748. This makes one have to sigh at the terrifying power of nature.
0 2 Will Tonga be the first country to be engulfed by volcanoes?
Will Tonga be engulfed by volcanoes? This we first compare Mount Vesuvius with the submarine volcano of Hong Aha Apai Island.
Vesuvius is only 1280 meters high, and the crater at the top of the volcanic cone is about 300 meters (1000 feet) deep and 600 meters (2000 feet) in diameter. On April 7, 1906, the sleeping Italian mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted, and the flowing magma surrounded the town of Ottaviano, killing and injuring hundreds of Italians.
Located on the small island of Hong Aha Apay, about 65 kilometers from Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa, the volcano is 149 meters above sea level and has only a heart-like lake like an eruption mouth, which looks inconspicuous on weekdays, but it is actually a "deep-sea monster" that exposes a corner. A supersea volcano with a diameter of 5 km. This is 17 times the diameter of Mount Vesuvius. How powerful do you say this is?
The Kingdom of Tonga has an area of only 747 square kilometers, while the capital (Tongatapu Island) is only more than 200 square kilometers and has a population of 100,000. You can compare it with our Hainan Island, which covers an area of 3.39 square kilometers, and the capital of Tonga is only one-sixteenth of Hainan Island.
How terrible is this eruption?
Why did the January 15 eruption in Tonga upset the world? The difference is that this eruption is the most intense in nearly 30 years in the world. According to professional researchers, the power of this volcanic eruption is equivalent to the explosive volume of 1,000 atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. According to the volcanic eruption index of the volcano to classify the volcano of Tonga, the preliminary estimate should be between VEI5-VEI6. The minimum index of volcanic eruptions is VEI1, and the energy released is equivalent to a magnitude 6.6 earthquake. As it stands, a volcanic eruption in Tonga is equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 8.5-9.0.
Because it was an undersea volcano, it caused a Pacific tsunami and quickly spread to neighboring countries. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning on January 16, saying that the height of the tsunami of the volcanic eruption will reach 3 meters, which is the first tsunami warning issued by Japan in more than five years, and the degree of harm can be seen.
What is the concept of a tsunami with a height of 3 meters?
The sea level in the Kingdom of Tonga is less than 10 meters, and the sea level in Tonga is getting lower and lower due to the rising sea level due to the warming climate.
The eruption of the submarine volcano left Tonga out of touch for two full days, and satellite images showed that all the houses on an island in Tonga had been destroyed by the tsunami, and the settled volcanic ash also brought many difficulties to the subsequent post-disaster reconstruction work.
In the worst case, if the Tonga volcano continues to erupt on a large scale in the future, Tonga is likely to become the second Pompeii, buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash, waiting for thousands of years before it can be excavated and seen again.
With global warming and frequent earthquakes, Tonga may soon sink to the bottom of the sea, becoming the first country in the world to perish and disappear into the sea.
Does it have an impact on China? Of course, volcanic eruptions will affect the global climate, but they will have little impact on China's waters. Because China's coast is blocked by the Japanese archipelago, the Philippine archipelago and the Malay archipelago, the first to be affected are these countries, which can also be regarded as a disaster for us. Now many people are worried that Mt. Fuji will erupt, which will be fatal to the Japanese.
I have to say that China's geographical location is really great. Bel Safe! It's good to be Chinese!
At the same time, we pray for the safety of the 1,500 overseas Chinese in Tonga.