The eruption from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on 15 January 2022 sent a shock wave recorded all around the world, a large volcanic plume more than 20 kilometres (km) in the atmosphere, and a tsunami that affected many communities in Tonga and all around the world. There was also strong ashfall locally and reports of damage to infrastructure such as undersea cables vital to communications.
A major earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia in the Flores Sea on 14 December 2021 at approximately 11:20am (Singapore time). According to the United States Geological Survey, the magnitude-7.3 earthquake occurred off the north coast of Flores, about 110 kilometres (km) from Maumere, at a depth of 16 km. The Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG), the Indonesian meteorology, climatology, and geophysical agency, issued tsunami warnings for the region but no significant tsunami was detected.
The magnitude-6 earthquake that struck Java on Saturday, 10 April 2021, at approximately 2pm (local time) occurred at a depth of 82 kilometres (km), according to the United States Geological Survey. This earthquake was strongly felt in East Java and led to loss of life and property. The location of this earthquake is the main reason why it was felt so strongly.
A Mw 7.1 earthquake struck Japan on 13 February 2021 at approximately 11:07pm (Japan local time). According to the United States Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred at a depth of about 50 kilometres (km) and about 70 km from the town of Namie, off the east coast of Honshu. The event was widely felt, injuring more than a hundred people and damaging some infrastructure.
A series of deadly earthquakes struck the Indonesian island of Lombok over three weeks in August 2018, causing widespread damage. These earthquakes were unusual because there were two magnitude-6.9 mainshock events that were each preceded by a smaller foreshock, instead of a single mainshock. The complexity of the earthquake sequence caused great anxiety about when another powerful earthquake might occur.
A moderate earthquake struck western Sulawesi, Indonesia, on 15 January 2021 at approximately 2:28am (SGT). According to the United States Geological Survey, the Mw 6.2 event occurred about 36 kilometres (km) south of Mamuju on the island of Sulawesi at a depth of 18 km.
The activity of Ili Lewotolok (or Lewotolo) volcano ramped up on 29 November 2020 with a series of eruptions. The largest of these eruptions occurred at about 9:45am local/Singapore time (1:45am UTC) and sent a gas and ash plume more than 5 kilometres (km) into the atmosphere. This powerful eruption was recorded by the infrasound network from the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS).
Typhoon Goni (Rolly in the Philippines) caused more than 20 fatalities in the Philippines earlier this month. Just a few days later, Typhoon Vamco (Ulysses) struck the Philippines again, then Vietnam on the other side of the South China Sea. “It is fairly common for more than one storm to occur in an ocean basin at the same time,” said Associate Professor Adam Switzer, a Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
A commentary by Professor Benjamin Horton (Earth Observatory of Singapore) and Emeritus Professor Perter Horton (University of Sheffield), published online on 7 July 2020 in One Earth, looks at how the current COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis are signs of the unsustainability of human society and the decreasing resilience of our ailing planet.
