Satellites have captured the moment Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupted and sent shockwaves across the South Pacific.

As reported by CNN, the volcano first erupted on Friday, resulting in a plume of ash sent bellowing 20km (12.4 miles) into the atmosphere. A second eruption reportedly hit on Saturday at 5:26PM local time.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano is located roughly 30km (18.5 miles) southeast of Tonga's Fonuafo'ou island, and 65km south of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa. There have already been witness reports of ash falling in Nuku'alofa, as well as waves flooding properties and coastal roads.

Satellite images later shared to social media show the devastating impact of the eruption, as a gigantic ash cloud emerges from the Earth. A selection of these images can be seen below:

Following a warning to residents, BBC News reports that a subsequent tsunami caused by the eruption has now hit the Pacific country. Additionally, the Fijian Government has issued a tsunami advisory and New Zealand officials have warned of storm surges, despite being more than 2,300km away.

According to the NWS Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, a tsunami warning for American Samoa has been called off.

Per CNN, Tonga's largest island, Tongatapu, has seen waves flooding into the streets.

Videos showing waves hitting the coastlines have since been shared to social media (although, at this time, these videos are unverified):

CNN adds that as well as the tsunami warning, Tonga's Meteorological Services have warned of strong winds and heavy rain.

Our thoughts are with all nearby residents of the eruption. Stay safe.

Featured image credit: NASA Image Collection / Alamy

Bardarbunga is a 6,590 foot tall volcano in Iceland, and it last erupted for seven entire months, from August 2014 until February 2015. The entire time, sulphur dioxide blew out of the volcano in plumes, and ever since then it has built up pressure until its next explosion. This next explosion is expected to happen any time between now and the next two years. Yeah, it's not exactly a perfect science. But experts are predicting that the explosion will come sooner rather than later, since in the past week, four massive earthquakes have rocked the volcano, accelerating its eruption cycles. Páll Einarsson, geophysicist from the University of Iceland, has said that the earthquakes were caused by the magma pressing against rocks in the chamber of the volcano. He said: "The reason for the earthquakes in this place is that the volcano Bárðarbunga is inflating, i.e. the pressure of magma in the magma chamber is increasing. It has been doing this since the last eruption ended, in February 2015. "The volcano is clearly preparing for its next eruption; that may happen in the next few years...The earthquakes last week are just the symptoms of this process - they do not cause the volcano to erupt." Basically, the magma causes the earthquakes, not the other way around. Seven years ago, another massive volcano called Eyjafjallajökull erupted, casting a tremendous cloud of ash over the skies of Europe, like an asteroid striking at the end of the Cretaceous period. The ash cloud grounded flights and stalled European travel, as it is unsafe to fly through dark volcanic clouds. More than 10 million airline passengers got stuck, and the overall loss to the British economy was estimated at around 5.3 billion U.S. dollars. Iceland has over 130 active volcanos, and three others are also due for eruptions sometime soon. The last multi-month eruption of Bardarbunga was a record-breaker, and only two years later, it's now looking to go again. The Icelandic Met Office has designated the volcano's magma levels as "high". Dr. Simon Day has offered a worst-case scenario, saying that the earthquakes and magma pressure could "precede a large explosive eruption and consequent widespread ash fall". However, don't go cancelling your flights just yet. Day, who works at University College London, has said that such a massive fallout would be "statistically unlikely". Although, it is true that statistical improbabilities have had a weird track record of coming true in the past year and a half. Still, with 130 active volcanos in Iceland, many of these eruptions are not continent-busters. Some volcanos are relatively peaceful. What do you think of this? Would you be excited to see a volcanic eruption? The ash clouds do look beautiful, or at least, the pluming clouds from the volcanic eruption have a certain sense of grandeur to them. Iceland looks so beautiful that it would probably be worth visiting even if all 130 volcanos were erupting at once. Okay, well, maybe not then, but I wouldn't cancel my flight unless magma was streaming into the ocean by the millions of gallons.

A volcano in Iceland that has been dormant for the last 6,000 years finally erupted on Friday night (March 19).

The Fagradals Mountain volcano, located in southwest Iceland, could be seen spewing bright lava and illuminating the dark night sky, CBS News reports. The glow from the molten lava could reportedly be seen up to 20 miles away in Iceland's capital of Reykjavík.

The eruption comes after weeks of earthquakes in the area, with the Met Office reporting roughly 50,000 small earthquakes, with dozens of them being a magnitude 4 or stronger, occurring in the last three weeks.

Despite being located near the most heavily populated area of the country, the Department of Emergency Management has said it doesn't anticipate any evacuations, unless levels of volcanic gases rise significantly.

The eruption also marks the first that the Reykjanes Peninsula - where the volcano is located - has experienced in 781 years.

As reported by The Independent, the eruption kicked off at approximately 08:45PM on Friday in the Geldinga Valley.

Local resident Solny Palsdottir - whose house is the closest to the site of the eruption at four kilometers away in the coastal town of Grindavik - told the Associated Press that she and her husband were watching TV when her teenage son pointed out the red glow from the eruption in the distance.

Palsdottir added that she is happy that the earthquakes and tremors have ended.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office said on Saturday (March 20) that the "minor" eruption is now easing, and there are no signs of ash or dust that will disrupt air travel.

Additionally, the Met Office has said in a statement: "There is no indication of production of ash and tephra, and there is no imminent hazard for aviation."

Back in 2010, the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, resulted in ash and dust clouds being sent into the atmosphere, causing over 100,000 flights to be grounded and leaving millions of passengers in Europe and North America stranded.

The Independent adds that Iceland averages one eruption every four to five years, with the last eruption occurring at Holuhraun back in 2014.

That seismic event caused a lava-flow the size of Manhattan to spread over the interior highland region.

Featured image credit: @claudiopgimages / Alamy

A teenage volcano survivor has shown off his dramatic recovery after surviving the White Island volcano eruption on December 9, 2019, which left him with burns on over 80 percent of his body.

Jake Milbank was celebrating his 19th birthday at the time of the explosion, and a day later, he would have been celebrating his one year anniversary of working as a tour guide on the New Zealand island.

However, his celebrations were cut short when the volcano erupted at 2:11 PM. The eruption killed 21 of the 47 people on the island, and those who didn't die suffered severe injuries.

Nearly six months later, in an interview with Newshub, the 19-year-old has now opened up about the fight-or-flight response he experienced after the explosion and his 90-minute journey back to the mainland with critical injuries.

Listen to Milbank describe his fight-or-flight response below:

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTi5sNsxJI]]

"You know what you've gotta do to survive and that's all I was really thinking about doing at the time," he said. "(I was) just trying to stay awake, and constantly reminding myself and having others around me reminding me that we were nearly back and it was all gonna be all good."

After the incident, Milbank was in the hospital for four months, and he spent two weeks of this time in a coma. He then endured 25 surgeries to repair the damage done by the eruption to his skin.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: PA Images]]

"It's definitely been a challenge, but I mean, all it's really gonna do is build character," he told Newshub. "There's nothing I can do about it except try my hardest to get back to where I was before the eruption, there's no point at looking at it negatively."

The 19-year-old is now undergoing extensive rehabilitation to get his life basic movements back, and he's hoping that he will soon be able to enjoy activities like fishing again with friends.

"Every day you notice, 'Oh I can take my sock off a little bit further' or something like that, it is pretty cool to see," he said.

Milbank lives in Whakatane, and he can see White Island from there. When asked if he'd go back, he said: "It does send shivers down the spine a little bit, gives you the goosebumps. "I wouldn't get too close, but yeah I definitely would like to go and have another look."

We wish Jake and all those injured in the eruption all the best in their recoveries.

For a full 38 minutes on Saturday morning, the residents of Hawaii believed that they were under attack. With the various inflammatory statements and missile tests coming out of North Korea in recent years, there's a lot of fear and anxiety over a possible nuclear war, but these people came far too close to the feeling that their lives were coming to an end. The panic started just after 8am, when an emergency alert was issued to everyone's cell phones, with the same alerts broadcast on TV and radio stations. This is an efficient way of communicating the threat - if the threat really existed. Imagine looking at your phone on a lazy Saturday morning and reading: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/KPRC2Sara/status/952253490063032320]] This forced many people to examine what they would do in a crisis, with the fate of their loved ones on the line. On a beach on Oahu's north shore, residents on a morning walk ran to cover in their homes, while drivers pulled over to tell pedestrians about the incoming missile. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/952289557659176961]] Hawaii have implemented monthly warning siren tests but rarely do they go this far, especially with the "this is not a drill". These sirens sound like a minute-long beep are played each month along with their tsunami warning tests. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/sophiecocke/status/952261549518856192]] Destinee Solis, 24, spoke to the Huffington Post about her experience thinking the world was coming to an end: “Once I finished, I went in and sat with my kids, hugged them tightly, closed my eyes and just hoped we would make it. My husband waited outside the closet door. At one moment, I went out to hug him and basically say our goodbyes.” “I didn’t want my kids to see the fear we felt waiting for [the missile] to hit. These moments were the scariest, darker moments of my life. I was mentally preparing myself to lose my kids, my life.” The government later issued a correction, but it took 38 minutes before this clarification was made, during which time plenty of people were in a state of panic. The official reason given by Governer David Ige was that a state employee had "pressed the wrong button" by accident. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd58z-ygDqo/]]