A spectacular footage of an underwater volcano erupting near Tonga. The eruption began Monday after a series of earthquakes near Tonga (a 170-island archipelago between Australia and Tahiti). Scientists sailed on Thursday to inspect an undersea volcano that has been erupting for days near Tonga, shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet into the sky above the South Pacific ocean.
Though the Wellington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center issued an advisory for the area, the plume isn’t engendering island residents and so far hasn’t hurt fish or other animals, according to the AP. „It’s a very significant eruption, on quite a large scale,” Tonga’s chief geologist, Kelepi Maf, told the Times of London. This is not unusual for this area and we expect this to happen here at any time.”