A 57-year-old Tongan said he swam around 27 hours after getting swept out to sea during Saturday’s devastating tsunami. The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano killed at least three people reut.rs/357yRGK 1/5
The volcanic eruption sent waves rolling across the archipelago, damaging villages, resorts and many buildings and knocked out communications for the nation of about 105,000 people 2/5
Lisala Folau, who lived on the small, isolated island of Atata which has a population of about 60 people, was swept out to sea when the waves hit land at about 7 p.m. on Saturday, he said in a radio interview to Tongan media agency Broadcom Broadcasting 3/5
Folau said he was painting his home when he was alerted about the tsunami, soon the waves had gone through his lounge.
He climbed on a tree to escape but when he got down another big wave swept him away, he said. The 57-year-old said he is disabled and cannot walk properly 4/5
'I just floated, bashed around by the big waves that kept coming,' he told the radio station.
Folau said he slowly managed to swim 7.5 km (4.7 miles) to the main island of Tongatapu, reaching the shore 27 hours later at about 10 p.m. on Sunday reut.rs/357yRGK 5/5
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at 'very short notice' as he met the country's president on the first leg of a new diplomatic push to avert war reut.rs/3fCqd4O 1/6
Russia said tension around Ukraine was increasing and it was still waiting for a written U.S. response to its sweeping demands for security guarantees from the West 2/6
The pessimistic statements highlighted the gulf between Washington and Moscow as Blinken gears up for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday that a Russian foreign policy analyst called 'probably the last stop before the train wreck' 3/6
Novak Djokovic has purchased 80% of Danish biotech firm QuantBioRes, aiming to develop a medical treatment against COVID-19, the company's chief executive told Reuters reut.rs/3rzUZkq
QuantBioRes CEO Ivan Loncarevic, who describes himself as an entrepreneur, says the investment was made in June 2020 but declined to reveal the amount reut.rs/3FDhMAR
QuantBioRes has around 11 researchers working in Denmark, Australia and Slovenia, according to Loncarevic, who stresses they were working on a treatment, not a vaccine
Thousands of people in Hong Kong volunteered to adopt unwanted hamsters after a mass cull order from the government over COVID-19 fears raised alarm that panicky owners would abandon their pets reut.rs/3nGZt7X 1/5
Authorities ordered 2,000 hamsters from dozens of pet shops and storage facilities to be culled after tracing a coronavirus outbreak to a worker in the Little Boss petshop, where 11 hamsters subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 2/5
Scientists around the world and Hong Kong health and veterinary authorities have said there was no evidence that animals play a major role in human contagion with the coronavirus 3/5
Tonga sits at the junction of two major tectonic plates, the Pacific and Indo-Australian.
The Pacific Plate is pushed west and sinks back into the mantle along a 'subduction zone’ as it reaches the Indo-Australian Plate and the smaller Tonga Plate reut.rs/3fEu9SU
An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Jan. 15, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuation orders in Japan and causing large waves in several South Pacific islands, where footage on social media showed waves crashing into coastal homes
Satellite images from Planet Labs on Jan. 7 showed volcanic gas escaping through the vent. On Jan. 15, about two hours before it erupted, the vent was predominantly underwater.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai lies about 65 km (40 miles) north of Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga
All the homes on one of Tonga's small outer islands were destroyed in the massive volcanic eruption and tsunami, with three people so far confirmed dead, the government said in its first update since the disaster hit reut.rs/329JK9T 1/5
With communications severely hampered by an undersea cable being severed, information on the scale of the devastation after Saturday's eruption, causing waves up to 15 meters high, has so far mostly come from reconnaissance aircraft 2/5
But the office of Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said in a statement that every home on Mango island, where around 50 people live, had been destroyed, only two houses remained on Fonoifua, and Namuka island had suffered extensive damage 3/5
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has left the door open for Novak Djokovic to compete at next year's #AusOpen despite the tennis superstar facing an automatic three-year ban from entering the country reut.rs/3KeO1dg
On the first day of the #AusOpen, the world's best men's tennis player was taking selfies with fans at a Dubai airport arrivals gate instead of warming up for his first scheduled match on center court at Melbourne Park in front of thousands reut.rs/3fxoTAo
Novak Djokovic could be barred from playing in the French Open as things stand now after the Sports Ministry said there would be no exemption from France's new vaccine pass law reut.rs/3IcRWW9