According to foreign media reports, on January 15, Tonga caused a tsunami disaster due to an undersea volcanic eruption. A local army of volunteers took brooms to clear the ash from the airport runway, allowing aid flights from Australia and New Zealand to land on January 20. However, after a few days, cleaning up volcanic ash remains an urgent priority for Tongans, from infrastructure such as airports and roads to residents' homes. But the problem is that aid from around the globe ignores a key tool – the broomstick.
Residents need to clean up the ash several times a day
The ash is carpeted
Tonga is in dire need of a sweeper
On Tonga's largest island, more than 17 million cubic feet of volcanic ash have reportedly been cleared. The disaster gave the Pacific Archipelago, about 170 islands, a 1.2-inch (about 3cm) thick "carpet."
"Volcanic ash is still the biggest problem right now. They need brooms to sweep streets and roofs. Fatafish Fatafani, speaker of the Tonga Parliament, said Tonga currently did not have enough brooms to turn around and that this simple tool was neglected in international aid. And much-needed rain is not expected to come to relieve its difficulties anytime soon.
Tonga International Airport cleans up volcanic ash
Volcanic ash also makes the daily life of ordinary residents difficult. Sarah Raterakpa, the manager of a bookstore in nuku'alofa, is so upset that she has to clean indoors and outdoors several times a day, a job that never seems to end. She and her family had to sweep bags of ash from the roof every day, had to water the garden, wash the car, flush the lawn and everything, two or three times a day. High-pressure water equipment also breaks down constantly due to overuse. When you're done cleaning the outside, you have to clean the interior. "It never seems like there's a time when the cleaning is really done. We had to mop the floor two or three times, but when we were done, the ground was still full of powder, so that people could almost skate on it. Raterakpa said helplessly.
If Tonga could avoid further large-scale ash landings, things would be a little better. However, single, high-intensity eruptions are relatively rare. A joint study by the University of Oxford, the University of Bristol, the University of East Anglia and the British Geological Survey notes that the typical condition of volcanic activity is a period of sustained eruption and falling ash within weeks. A 2019 study also showed that the median duration of the eruption was about 7 weeks.
Therefore, for Raterakpa, it is still far from returning to normal life.
Thick layers of volcanic ash cover everything
Volcanic ash poses multiple hidden dangers:
Human health, crops and water resources will all be affected
Ash cleanup is only a short-term problem, and it also has medium- to long-term impacts on human health, food and water that are currently difficult to assess.
Scientists in New Zealand are analyzing volcanic ash brought back by an aid flight to Tonga. They want to extract information, gain insight into the eruption, and help with local recovery. For example, knowing the proportion of particles contained in volcanic ash can help assess its health risks to the respiratory tract, as well as the leaching properties of volcanic ash and predict what chemicals will appear when it mixes with water.
Usually, inhaling fine volcanic ash can cause short-term symptoms such as runny nose and discomfort in breathing in healthy humans, while people with respiratory problems will develop severe symptoms. If long-term exposure to volcanic ash can lead to severe lung disease.
There were not enough brooms in Tonga's post-disaster recovery efforts
The report pointed out that according to the history of other volcanic eruptions and human treatment experience, it is better to deal with volcanic ash systematically and in a coordinated manner. For example, volcanic ash in rural areas should be scattered in plantations, while urban areas cannot be dumped into any hole at will, as it can cause groundwater, river or fishery pollution. Tom Wilson, an expert on volcanic ash and agriculture at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, points out that a good idea is to cover it with mud to stabilize it.
In addition, three quarters of Tonga's exports are agricultural products. The extent to which the ash could wreak havoc on local agriculture is unclear. Wilson pointed out that volcanic ash 2 to 3 cm thick can cause moderate to severe damage to crops. Rainfall after volcanic eruptions can usually mitigate its damage to agriculture, washing ash off plants and seeping into the soil, but not always. Because when the ash is fine enough, it can block the infiltration of rainwater into the land and cause flooding on the surface.
Red Star News reporter Lin Rong
Edited by Pan Li
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