Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai, Before and After

Two maps showing Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai before and after the volcanic eruption of January 2022
NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens; data courtesy of Dan Slayback/NASA/GSFC.

NASA Earth Observatory has released digital elevation maps of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai both before and after the volcanic eruption earlier this month.

The digital elevation maps above and below show the dramatic changes at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai, the uppermost part of a large underwater volcano. It rises 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) from the seafloor, stretches 20 kilometers (12 miles) across, and is topped by a submarine caldera 5 kilometers in diameter. The island is part of the rim of the Hunga Caldera and was the only part of the edifice that stood above water.

Now all of the new land is gone, along with large chunks of the two older islands.