Volcanic Eruption in the Tongan Sea off the Australian shores

[The Don]

http://www.theage.com.au/world/tonga...0319-93c8.html

AN UNDERSEA volcano has erupted off the coast of Tonga, shooting clouds of smoke, steam and ash thousands of metres into the sky above the South Pacific Ocean.

Spectacular columns spewed about 10 kilometres from the south-west coast of the main island of Tongatapu — an area where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered.
Tsunami alert as volcano erupts

An undersea volcano is erupting near Tonga, shooting smoke and ash hundreds of metres into the sky above the south Pacific Ocean.

"It's a very significant eruption, on quite a large scale," said Keleti Mafi, the head of Tonga's geological service.

There was no sign the offshore eruption posed any danger to residents, he said, with trade winds blowing gas and steam away from the island.

Residents said the steam and ash column first appeared on Monday, after a series of sharp earthquakes were felt in the capital, Nuku'alofa.

"This is not unusual for this area and we expect this to happen here at any time," Mr Mafi said, adding that a similar eruption took place there in 2002.

It was likely the underwater eruption was taking place to the west of the low-lying twin volcanic islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai, within sight of Nuku'alofa.

Tonga is part of the Pacific "ring of fire" of volcanic and earthquake zones.

AP

There is a video of the event captured...It was erupting between last Monday up until Friday that just passed....I saw this on my AOL homepage and an hour later it was removed from the entire AOL search engine and it's not even in the news even though it apparently has caused Tsunami's...

are there any Aussie's here that know about this?...This sort of topic interests me...