IN ERUPTION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 138, 7 December 1935, Page 10

IN ERUPTION

NIUAFOU ISLAND

PEOPLE LEAVE ONE VILLAGE

NO CASUALTIES

United Tress Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 7, 1.30 p.m.) SUVA, This Day. Niuafou Island erupted at 12.50 o'clock this morning, and lava is pouring into the sea over the 1929 lava field. The inhabitants of one village .have left as a precautionary measure. Otherwise all is safe. Reports received in Wellington today by the Director-General of the General Post Office (Mr. G. McNamara) and-by the Director of the Meteorological Office (Dr. E. Kidson) stated that Niuafou Island, a small island in the Tongan group, is in eruption. Neither of the reports gave any details.

The report received by the General Post Office came from the Nukualofa radio station, and that by Dr. Kidson was appended to the weather notice sent from the island. Both messages simply reported that the island is xn eruption.

Niuafou or "Tin Can" island is volcanic and with deep water surrounding it. It belongs to Tonga, and supports a population of several hundred natives, and a few white men. An eruption a few years ago destroyed the island's best landing place and when the New Zealand Eclipse Expedition of 1930 sailed for the place they needed special assistance to land. There is no coral reef about the island and seas are heavy. The difficulty of landing has led to the system of swimming the mail ashore in a tin can which gave the island its alternative name. A VOLCANIC CENTRE. The island is ring-shaped, about five miies in diameter, and the crater lake is about three miles across The 1929 eruption devastated a large sector on the western side of the island affecting nearly one-fourth of the whole coastal region. Most of the inhabitants live in the north-eastern part of the island. "The really .terrible thing about a severe eruption at Niuafou," said Mr R. W. de Montalk, "is that the inhabitants have practically.no means of reaching safety. There are about 1200 people on the island, mostly Tongans, and they, are a fine people. In the event of an eruption of any dimensions they would be literally trapped, unless there happened to be any shipping in the neighbourhood of the island. Even then, because of the heavy seas that run against the rocks, their task of leaving by boats would be fraught with extreme difficulty. When I was there I saw on the island a large whale boat and a sort of outrigger native canoe, but, so heavily does the sea break in on the rocks that it is a tremendous job to launch boats. A quarter of a mile out the water may be perfectly smooth, but at all times the rocks are washed by the sea."