Tonga two months after the eruption

Just over two months ago, the undersea volcano of Hunga Tonga erupted catastrophically, generating huge tsunamis and covering the islands of Tonga in ash.

This programme is now available ON-Demand by visiting the Science in Action Page, it will be available until Thursday the 14th of April. It will also be broadcast on Sunday the 10th of April in Phuket at 9:00 AM on 91.5 FM and 102.5 FM and Online via the Internet radio portals.

University of Auckland geologist Shane Cronin is now in Tonga, trying to piece together the sequence of violent events.

Edinburgh University palaeontologist Ornella Bertrand tells us about her studies of the ancient mammals that inherited the Earth after the dinosaurs were wiped out. To her surprise, in the first 10 million years after the giant meteorite struck, natural selection favoured larger-bodied mammals, not smarter ones.

At the University of Bristol, a team of engineers are developing skin for robots, designed to give future bots a fine sense of touch. Roland shakes hands with a prototype.

A global satellite survey of the world’s largest coastal cities finds that most of them contain areas that are subsiding faster than the rate that the sea level is rising.

Some cities are sinking more than ten times faster, putting many millions of people at an ever-increasing risk of flooding. Oceanographer Steven D’Hondt at the University of Rhode Island explains why this is happening.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

(Image: An eruption occurs at the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha”apai off Tonga, January 14, 2022. Credit: Tonga Geological Services/via Reuters)

The Tonga eruption 2022 one year on.

We’re taking a look back at the Tonga eruption 2022 of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, which literally sent shockwaves around the world.

Sunday morning on Phuket Radio