Two businessmen from Tonga visited a newly created island in Tonga on March 7, supplying the first pictures of the island as they walked on it, reported the Matangi Tonga, Tonga’s leading news website. The visitors, Gianpiero Orbassano and Branko Sugar of Nuku’alofa, said the climb was dangerous with the ground covered with deep, unstable channels and it was excessively hot. BYU-Hawaii student Ana Ova from Tonga, a sophomore studying education with a minor in social work, has seen the recent pictures and called it “beautiful and amazing.”The new island, formed from the Hunga Tonga underwater volcano is located 28 miles northwest of Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa. The island began growing in December, when the eruption began and thus far has reached a height of 1,640 feet, according to BBC News. Even though people have walked on the island, scientists have suggested the island to be highly unstable and dangerous, filled with large and unconsolidated material, said BBC News. “There is a lot of rock. It’s not just ash. It looks like the moon,” said Orbassano. The visitors also reported to Matangi Tonga they didn’t think the island would disappear anytime soon. Underwater volcanoes that erupt and break the surface form an island of ash. They will only stay if the eruption lasts long enough, otherwise, they will be swept away by the currents and waves produced by the ocean and other means, according to BBC News. Because this island is tall and relatively solid, there is hope for this island to stay, but also a large chance for it to eventually disappear, according to the Matangi Tonga. Some students leaned toward this island staying, such as Melee Loketi, a junior studying education from Tonga. “The majority of these volcanic islands, they stay,” she said. “It may stay there and who knows, some people may inhabit it in the future.”Vicki Hext, a junior studying hospitality and tourism management from Arizona, said, “That’s cool that there are landforms still forming.” And if the island does not wash away and continues to grow, she added it would “definitely be a future vacation spot” when it was safe. Uploaded March 25, 2015
Writer: Rachel Reed
