The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has decided to subsidize the comprehensive investigation of the eruption of the Tonga submarine volcano and the tsunami that accompanies it, which is planned by Professor Kenji Satake of the Earthquake Research Institute, the University of Tokyo.The research cost is 1,873 million yen, and Japan will continue to elucidate the effects of the submarine volcanic eruption and tsunami, which cannot be done by other personnel.
According to the Ministry of Education, the comprehensive survey includes the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo, the Disaster Prevention Research Institute of Kyoto University, the International Research Institute of Disaster Science of Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, Kochi Institute of Technology, Chuo University, the Meteorological Research Institute of the Meteorological Agency, and the Ocean Research and Development Organization. Twenty-four researchers, including Taro Kakinuma, Associate Professor of Science and Engineering, Kagoshima University, and Yasunori Hata, Associate Professor of Graduate School of Comprehensive Research, Yamanashi University, will participate from 18 institutions, and Professor Satake will be the representative.
The subjects of the survey are elucidation of the process of submarine volcanic explosions in shallow water and the mechanism of atmospheric waves caused by eruptions, estimation of scale by eruption simulation, elucidation of propagation characteristics of global tsunamis by analysis of domestic and foreign micropressure data, and elucidation of preceding waves of atmospheric waves. Analysis of development and amplification, development of volcanic tsunami prediction method, elucidation of the impact of Tonga eruptive tsunami on the coastal area of Japan, issuance of tsunami warnings and actual conditions of resident response.
It is estimated that the eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga in the South Pacific was a large-scale eruption with a volcanic explosivity index of about 1.Rapid changes in atmospheric pressure were observed around the world, and tsunamis with a height of over 6 meter were observed in the Amami Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture and Kuji City in Iwate Prefecture.
