Photo: VINCENZO PINTO / AFP / Getty Images
For: Real America News Updated 19 Jan 2022, 15: 31 PM EST
Pope Francis expressed his closeness and asked for prayers for the victims after the powerful eruption of the submarine volcano in Tonga, during the general audience held in the Paul VI Hall of the Vatican.
“My thoughts go to the populations of the islands of Tonga affected a few days ago by the eruption of an underwater volcano that has caused serious material damage”, Francis said at the end of the audience.
The pontiff expressed his spiritual closeness to these severely affected people and implored “ to God relief for their suffering “, in addition to inviting the faithful to join in prayer for these people.
At least three people have lost their lives after an “unprecedented disaster”, as the authorities defined it, last Saturday in Tonga, made up of 100 islands and with 105, inhabitants, when the violent eruption of an underwater volcano caused a tsunami with waves of 15 meters high.
Tonga will remain incommunicado with the outside world for at least four more weeks after the eruption cut the cable that provides the Polynesian archipelago with telephone and internet connections.
According to the New Zealand High Commission in Tonga , the companies in charge of the submarine cable linking the archipelago with neighboring Fiji believe that the line was broken about 35 kilometers from the coast over the weekend due to the onslaught of the tsunami generated after the eruption, with waves of up to 15 meters high.
“The company of cable SubCom advises that it will take at least four weeks to repair the connection and n Tonga”, revealed the New Zealand authorities.
In an update on the situation after the eruption and the tsunami, the New Zealand body indicated that today has managed to establish a provisional mobile phone system with a 2G connection, although with a “limited and irregular” capacity.
With information from Efe.
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