Volcano Hunga Tonga, an unusual eruption

On January 15th, 2022, the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano in the Tonga archipelago in the Pacific Ocean created a volcanic plume several tens of kilometers high in the atmosphere, widely visible on satellite images. The associated tsunami spread from Japan to Peru, and the shockwave triggered by the eruption circled the globe several times. Jean-Christophe Komorowski, volcanologist and head of the IPGP’s volcanological and seismological observatories, looks back at this exceptional explosive eruption and the similarities it could have with France’s active overseas volcanoes.