Samantha Moala recalls she was taking a shower at her home in Tonga when she heard what sounded like a gunshot so powerful it hurt her ears.
As she and her family scrambled to their car to drive inland, ash blackened the sky. The world's biggest volcanic eruption in 30 years sent a tsunami around the globe, and the first waves washed across the road as Moala drove to safety at the airport with her terrified husband and two sons.
Three months after the eruption, Tonga's rebuilding is slowly progressing, and the impact of the disaster has come into clearer focus. Last week, the prime minister handed over the keys to the first rebuilt home of the 468 the government plans to reconstruct across three islands as part of its recovery program.
Three people in Tonga died from the tsunami and a fourth from what authorities described as related trauma. The sonic boom from the eruption was so loud it could be heard in Alaska and a mushroom plume of ash rocketed a record 58 kilometres into the sky. The international community has been helping out, with Tonga able to secure $8 million in funding from the World Bank and $10 million from the Asian Development Bank, as well as aid assistance from many places including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the European Union, the U.S. and China.
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