Tonga eruption equivalent to hundreds of Hiroshimas: NASA

(News1st); The Tonga volcanic eruption unleashed explosive forces that dwarfed the power of the of the Hiroshima atomic bomb NASA scientists said, as survivors on Monday (24) described how the devastating Pacific blast "messed up our brains".

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano spewed debris as high as 40 kilometers (25 miles) into the atmosphere during the January 15th eruption that triggered huge tsunami waves, the NASA Earth Observatory said.

The eruption was hundreds of times stronger than the US atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945, which was estimated to be about 15 kilotons (15,000 tones) of TNT, NASA stated.

The eruption "obliterated" the volcanic island about 65 kilometers (41 miles) north of the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa, The agency said. 

It blanketed the island in a layer of toxic ash, poisoning drinking water, destroying crops and completely wiping out at least two villages.

It also claimed at least three lives in Tonga and resulted in the drowning deaths of two beachgoers in Peru after freak waves hit the South American country.

Furthermore, Peruvian authorities have declared an environmental disaster after the waves hit an oil tanker offloading near Lima, creating a huge slick along the coast.

In Tonga, the scale of destruction remains unclear after communications to remote islands were knocked out.