WHO advises Tongans to stay at home and wear a mask due to ashes

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended to the residents of Tonga, an Oceanian archipelago that has been cut off for days by the eruption of a volcano, that they remain in their homes and wear masks due to the volcanic ash still present in the air.

LOOK: First images: Tonga, covered in ash and with the devastated coasts after the eruption and tsunami

The spokesman for the WHO Christian Lindmaier also indicated that the eruption has forced at least 89 people to leave their homes on the islands of Eua and Tonga-tapu, although the United Nations has not been able to fully assess the damage caused by the catastrophe that occurred on January 15.

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This work is made difficult by the impossibility of accessing the archipelago by air and the interruption of internet telecommunications, so the damage that could have been suffered by the northernmost districts of Tonga, Ha’apai and Vava’u, is unknown. made up of dozens of small islands.

In Tonga-tapu, the country’s main island and where the capital Nuku’alofa is located, health facilities continue to function smoothly and there has been no increase in patient care, Lindmeier said.

The country’s authorities have confirmed the death of at least two people, including a British citizen, as well as the destruction of some 50 homes and damage to another hundred of them.

The country, like other relatively isolated archipelagos in Oceania, has barely been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. covid-19, and the first and even only confirmed case of the disease in the country was registered in October 2021.

Tonga, made up of 169 islands and with 105,000 inhabitants, remains covered by a dense layer of ash and with the coasts devastated by the onslaught of the waves, according to aerial images taken this Tuesday by reconnaissance flights.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicated that it is particularly concerned about the situation of the hundred inhabitants of the islands of Mango and Fonoi, practically at sea level and from which distress signals have been issued.

The Red Cross estimates that some 80,000 people, or four-fifths of the national population, have been affected by the natural disaster, while experts do not rule out other incidents of volcanic activity.

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano could be heard hundreds of kilometers away and is one of the most violent that has been recorded in the last thirty years on the planet.

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Deshawn