On January 15, 2022, an underwater volcano in the Tongan archipelago violently erupted, hurling a plume of ash and rock almost 60 kilometres into the atmosphere and triggering a shock wave and coast-battering tsunami.
Six people were killed and the island kingdom was cut off from the rest of the world after underwater communication cables were severed by an underwater landslide of debris.
With a day job at Tonga’s Ministry of Land, Leki Lao began his photography journey by shooting weddings, but his photos were some of the first to emerge from the disaster.
“From taking photos of people to taking photos of the aftermath of the tsunami, that was two different landscapes of photography that I wasn’t prepared for,” he told Stories from the Pacific.
“We saw the ash cloud … there was a brief moment of calm when everyone was just looking up at the sky … at the ash cloud. And then the panic started to happen.
“The whole panic started when the whole day turned into night within a few minutes.”
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption could be heard as “loud thunder sounds” in Fiji, more than 800 kilometres away, and was even detected as far away as Alaska.
On that day, Lao found himself on board a navy boat travelling across obstructed seas to survey the damage with his camera.
Here’s some of what he captured in the wake of the eruption.
Dead fish floating on the ocean’s surface, debris, and fallen coconut trees are some of the initial things Lao recalled as they sailed towards islands in the Ha’apai group.
“So I tried to solely focus on the damage alone, and not much on the people. I just felt like it wasn’t the right time to take photos of the immediate reactions they had on their faces.”
The underwater volcanic eruption was felt across the Pacific.
Tonga had little warning before it was hit by a tsunami generated by the volcano.
“We really didn’t have a fair warning that was actually going to happen,” Lao said.
“Like every day you’ll just wake up and see the volcano just smoking so … we got pretty used to it. We got pretty used to seeing the volcano just being alive right next to us.”
The Kingdom of Tonga “slowly getting its colours back” was captured by Lao on February 1, a mere two weeks after the eruption.
“Big Malo Aupito to all the efforts here in the kingdom,” he said.
