Samaritan’s Purse is sending emergency aid to help hurting families in the South Pacific.
Many people are still in need after an underwater volcano erupted and triggered a subsequent tsunami in Tonga. The waves caused significant damage, reaching nearly four feet on Tonga’s largest island of Tongatapu and flooding many homes and roads. A massive volcanic ash cloud also covered island communities for days, contaminating water and food supplies.
Samaritan’s Purse is sending more than 300 rolls of heavy-duty emergency shelter material to Tonga. The shelter material is being trucked from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to California, where it will be loaded onto a shipping container. The Tonga Consul General, Sela Tukia, in San Francisco is involved in the coordination of this relief shipment, which will also include helpful items gathered by Bay Area residents who hail from the island nation.
Reports suggest that the Tonga volcanic eruption is the world’s biggest since 1991, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines. Tonga is located about 500 miles east of Fiji and includes more than 170 islands. Its remote location, combined with concerns over the spread of COVID-19, has made recovery and distribution of aid difficult. Some areas of the country were cut off from the rest of the world for several weeks after the eruption and tsunami.
Please pray for the people of Tonga as they continue moving forward in the wake of this disaster. Pray that they will come to know the steadfast, abundant love that God has for them.
