ORDINARY TONGAN LIVES - Pangaimotu, Tonga

Story collated and written by Haitelenisia Afemui ‘Uhila Angilau for her 'Ordinary Tongan Lives' facebook page.  She is currently covering survivors stories from the Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption and subsequent tsunami.

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“This is the 50th year of living and working at Pangaimotu. And we’re still going. I’m part Tongan; I came here when I was 24. The dream was to develop an island in an idealistic tourist way. Not too commercial but just a nice place. Much of the dream has been taken away by a few cyclones but we just start again after each one. We started the business at 1972.

I remember cyclone Isaac back in 1982 which was a big one. There was another one called son of Isaac but it’s not recorded in history. The hurricane left and came back the next week and hit us again. That’s why the Lady Lata—the sunken ship—is at Pangaimotu now. Although here have been many cyclones, this is the first tsunami. The business has been affected so badly by the COVID lockdown then omicron came and made things worse. Almost everything we had was used up. And then we had a tsunami on top of that.

We had already talked about what happens in a tsunami. There are two things: you either go out to sea, or go inland to high ground. When the eruption happened, Mama said, ‘Run to the cross!’ We ran, stood there, and saw that the sea started coming up. Then we thought we’ll run to the vanilla farm in the middle of the island. There were 12 of us altogether with children. The wave came from the Nuku’alofa side. Fortunately for us and the children, they didn’t see the waves or be traumatized by it. By the time everyone got to the little hill at the vanilla farm, I was already up on a fau tree.”

“I had thought while running that we’re going to die anyway. We had our family visiting us to celebrate Christmas, New Year, and my birthday since they were in Ha’apai during the holidays. Our son and my brother were just getting the boat ready to take them back when the wind started to pick up. Because it was windy, the boat was taken to the other side of the island to pick the family there. It was then that my son saw a big wave coming to Makaha’a Island. He called us and said, ‘Take the kids and run. A big wave is coming.’  While running with the children, I was cautious not to say anything that would scare them like, ‘Run! We’re going to die!’ I just stuck to giving directions on where to run to. Everyone knows that if you’re at sea and you yell SHARK, people will panic and kids will be scared of the sea for the rest of their lives. So I just yelled, ‘Run to the cross! Run to the sia!’

My son and brother saw the wave coming; one went on the roof and one on a tree.  Meanwhile, we were at the slope of the little hill putting the kids up on the branches of a wild hibiscus tree. We tried to make the kids happy and kept telling them it’s almost over because they kept asking us the time. When the ash came, we were all covered in it. We didn’t run with anything else. The boys went later and got tarps for us to sit on and to shelter the kids. The adults took turns going in under the tarps throughout the night to get some sleep.

I’m extremely grateful for my cousin Hauoli Vī who kept calling on the phone throughout the night all the way until morning to ensure we were okay. She also made calls to ensure we were rescued. By 8am on Sunday morning, the Police rescue boat came to get us. We had no idea of what had happened to Fafā and ‘Atatā. Everyone came except the two of us. He didn’t want to come. But after one night there in the sand with nothing to eat or wear, I said it’s time to go. We can’t stay here any longer.”