On Saturday, an undersea volcanic eruption in Tonga caused concern around the world. The South Pacific island nation, which had been out of touch for three days, finally resumed external communications this week.
Yesterday the airport was also restored, and the first relief supplies from Australia and New Zealand are reaching the country that is now destroyed by volcanic ash and seawater.
Now that more local updates have been reported, the tarbes on Tonga's main island are not very serious, and the areas that have been hit the most are mainly concentrated in the resort area on the west side of tabu island.
Today, however, news from other small islands in Tonga that have lost contact with the main island has been hit hard and that the island's buildings and infrastructure have been severely damaged.
Officials said the current known death toll from the disaster was 3, but no number of missing people were announced.
But at the same time as the unfortunate news came, the touching story of the survival of an uncle named Lisala Folau in this disaster brought courage and faith.
Uncle Lisara, a 57-year-old retired carpenter, lives on the small island of Atata in Tonga, about 8 kilometers from The Tonga capital, Nuku'alofa, and usually takes 30 minutes by boat.
The island is inhabited by 61 people, including him, his wife, and a pair of children.
Uncle himself has a leg disability, it is difficult to walk normally, "the speed of movement is not as good as a crawling baby", in addition to the uncle's physical illness, her little daughter is not in good health, despite this, the uncle's family is very happy, living happily in Atata.
However, this world-renowned disaster ruined the quiet life of Uncle Lisara's family and the entire island's residents.
When the disaster struck Saturday night, uncle, like many local islanders, was swept into the Pacific by a tsunami.
Incredibly, the disabled Uncle Lisara soaked in the sea for 27 hours and then escaped unharmed by himself, bravely crossing the sea distance of more than 7 kilometers to reach the main island of Tabu and personally telling this amazing story.
The uncle had the opportunity to seek help from his family when he first fell into the water, but he gave up decisively, only for a tearful reason...
Time to pull back to a scene of Uncle Lisara and his family on Saturday afternoon.
At that time, the uncle's house was painting the house, and he asked his brother and niece to help, along with the uncle and the uncle's son, who were busy in the house. At about 6 p.m. that night, after the submarine volcano erupted and caused a tsunami, the family was lucky to avoid the first round of tsunami shock.
Outside the house, Uncle Lisara was alert and alerted the situation and shouted into the house to inform his brother and daughter nephew.
The three people in the house also reacted quickly, rushing out of the house and climbing to the coconut tree next to the house.
Then they saw the raging waves engulfing their houses and the whole island, the sea spreading to their feet, and they clung to the trees to avoid being swept away by this great force.
An hour later, seeing that the tsunami's huge waves were gradually receding, and everything seemed to be calm, the three of them let down their guard and went down the tree. However, when they had just come down from the tree, a second round of tsunami suddenly came in a frenzy,
"The waves we saw were almost 6 meters high, and we wanted to climb back up the tree, but it was too late."
(Schematic)
The three were swept into the sea by a second tsunami, and due to the large amount of ash spewed from the eruption, the sky at that time was shrouded in black smoke without a single light. In the darkness, the three can only keep in touch by calling each other's names to confirm each other's situation.
However, Uncle Lisara's niece was the first to lose her voice, her voice disappeared, and the whole person disappeared.
Hearing that his cousin was missing, Uncle Lisara's son called his father's name even more eagerly, fearing that something would happen to him.
At this time, the uncle who heard his son's urgent shouting immediately closed his mouth and refused to respond to his son's confirmation.
Afterwards, he told the rescuers the reasons behind his abnormal behavior at the time.
"The truth is that a son cannot abandon his father. But for me, as a father, if I had answered his cries, he might have done everything in his power to rescue me.
But in that case, I thought that if the worst happened, I would leave it alone.
And soon, as the uncle predicted, the two completely lost contact.
The disabled uncle also began to think about countermeasures quickly after he began to drift alone, and he first thought of finding a piece of driftwood, even if it was a small plank.
Everyone knows that wood can remain floating in the sea, but at that time, Uncle Lisara was not only considering self-help.
"I kept thinking that if I could catch a tree or anything, if something happened and I lost my life, searching for people or finding me, my family could see my body."
Fortunately, the tsunami broke many branches, and the uncle successfully found a tree branch and carried it adrift at sea.
Because the powerful energy of the tsunami has not faded, the strong ocean current makes it very difficult for people to swim in the reverse direction of the sea, and the uncle himself is already disabled, simply thinking of drifting with driftwood for a while to see.
It was already midnight on Saturday, and the uncle had been floating so helplessly at sea all night.
The next morning, the ash had faded a bit, and the morning sun had penetrated the calm sea after the tsunami, and the uncle had drifted to a small island called Toketoke and left Atata.
He began to make other plans, thinking about how to save himself. And as he pondered, Lady Luck took care of him—he saw a police boat in the distance heading towards his island of Attata, supposed to go to the rescue.
The uncle immediately grabbed the only "eye-catching sign" in his hand, a rag, and waved it deadly in the direction of the police ship.
However, the distance between the two was too far, and the police ship did not notice that there were still floating people on the sea, and only sailed away from the uncle in the direction of the island...
Undeterred, the uncle continued to wait for his chance, and indeed, as he expected, another rescue ship appeared on the surface of the sea and rushed towards Atata.
However, the uncle wielding the rag once again witnessed the boat "relentlessly" sailing...
Both ships ignored Uncle Lisara, and he had to find a way to survive again.
He made a surprising decision - he couldn't float so passively anymore, he had to take the initiative to swim in the direction of the island!
It seems unlikely that the swim back to Atata is high, and the waves are still lapped vigorously in the direction of pushing people away from Atata. The uncle decided to start swimming in the direction of the current.
At 10 o'clock in the morning on Sunday, the uncle officially began the road of swimming and self-help, and under the condition of no food and no rescue, at 6 o'clock that night, he swam to an uninhabited island about 4 miles from the place of departure.
He shouted for help, hoping that someone around him would show up, but his hopes were quickly dashed.
But the uncle did not despair, he observed the surrounding terrain and felt that he was not too far away from the main island of Tongatapu. So, he mustered up again and continued to swim in the sea to save himself.
At this time, the uncle swam all day, without a mouthful of fresh water to drink, nor any food to eat, in fact, there was only faith left in his mind, and at this time his only hope was his family.
"I was worried about my niece who had been swept away by the waves, my sister and little daughter who were sick. All these worries were racing through my head, and I was thinking I had to live to find out about them. ”
Under the selfless love and concern of this family, the uncle swam another mile and finally reached the west of the main island of Tabu.
At 10 p.m. on Sunday, he saw a few shimmers on the main island, went ashore along the beach, and found a road in front of him.
He found a broken branch from the beach as a cane and rushed to the road for help, but soon a driver passed by and found him.
The uncle was saved, and it should have been 28 hours since he was swept into the sea by the tsunami...
The story of the rescued uncle's self-help spread throughout Tonga, and the media called him "the real 'Aquaman'".
Unfortunately, the son that the uncle wanted to protect is still missing, and his daughter is lucky to survive, crying on social media and lamenting her father's great and miraculous adventure on this road and expressing her gratitude to Heaven.
This story is really more wonderful and touching than the miracle in the disaster movie...