Tonga's Home Reef Volcano erupted again early this morning, with eruption events increasing over the last 24 hours sending steam vents 1km into the atmosphere.

A volcanic submarine island has re-emerged 10m above sea level and continues to grow larger, from 1 acre to nearly 6 acres in five days.

Tonga Geological Services is maintaining a Hazard Alert with restricted zones for 6km around the area: “The volcano activity poses low risks to the Aviation Community and the residents of Vava’u and Ha’apai. All Mariners are advised to sail beyond 4km away from Home Reef until further notice.”

TGS said Home Reef Volcano last erupted at 2:48am local time, this morning 17 September 2022, following increasing activity in the previous 24 hours.

“Fumarolic activities and steam is released up to 1km into the atmosphere and is ongoing, no volcanic ash is detected”.

They have been monitoring steam eruptions over the last eight days, from the Home Reef Volcano located 25km SW of Late Island, in the western, active Tofua chain on the Tonga Ridge. “The eruption events had increased in the last 24 hours to 11 events compared to two events in the previous 24 hours, thus a total of 13 eruptions in the last 48 hours,” TGS stated this morning.

The eruption was detected by VOLCAT satellite at 1:39am local time on 10 September, 2022.

The re-emergence of Home Reef was confirmed by the Sentinel-2 Satellite at 01:59pm last Saturday, 11 hours and 20 minutes after it first erupted, at Latitude & Longitude 18.992°S and 174.775°W. A gaseous volcanic cloud was detected at 1km by NOAA-20VIIRS.

The location is 22 km NE of Lateiki and 90km NW of Ha’ano Island and 75 km Northwest of Mo’unga’one Island in the Ha'apai Group.


The TGS Volcano Watch Team said today that “the island has grown from 70m diameter on 10 September to 170m diameter on 15 September, with an increase in area from 1 acres to 5.6 acres in five days, with an estimated height of 10m above sea level.”

Hazard Map

TGS has issued a Hazard Map (No Go Zones) to guide all Mariners sailing near Home Reef. Continuous monitoring is carried out daily with advisories for the public.

The Volcanic Hazards Map for Home Reef eruption has three zones:

Zone 1 - Highest Risk (No Access Permitted)
Zone 2 - Moderate Risk (Restricted Access Only)
Zone 3 - Low Risk

The hazards in Zone 1 include the risk of explosions, ballistic ejecta, tephra, lava domes, laze, vog, pumice,  islands/shoals, and volcanic edifice collapse.

In Zones 2 and 3 there is a risk of vog, laze, pumice, submarine plumes, tephra and tsunamis.