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Covid Emerged as Chinese Lab Faced Biosafety Issues, Senate Republican Study Finds

Report says vaccine research, other ‘circumstantial evidence’ point to laboratory leak as source of pandemic.

WSJ By Warren P. Strobel and Michael R. Gordon, April 17, 2023 

What Dominion Has to Prove in Its Case Against Fox News

Did the hosts of the country’s most popular cable news network know that Trump’s lies about the election were untrue?

The New Yorker by Clare Malone, April 17, 2023

Analysis: Norway crude mops up in Europe as Russia's Urals heads east

The EU embargo imposed in December on Russian seaborne oil imports has allowed other oil-producing countries to enter Europe. It is now the primary raw material for refineries in Germany, Poland, and Finland.

Reuters editing by Germán & Co

India and China snap up Russian oil in April above 'price cap'

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest that Russian Urals oil cargo loaded in the first half of April is mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

Reuters

The power of a volcanic eruption: This one was bigger than any U.S. nuclear blast

A new study estimated the Tonga volcanic explosion was 15 megatons, equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT

TWP by Kasha Patel, Updated April 14, 2023 

Covid Emerged as Chinese Lab Faced Biosafety Issues, Senate Republican Study Finds

Report says vaccine research, other ‘circumstantial evidence’ point to laboratory leak as source of pandemic.

WSJ By Warren P. Strobel and Michael R. Gordon, April 17, 2023 

WASHINGTON—A Chinese laboratory conducting advanced coronavirus research faced a series of biosafety problems in November 2019 that drew the attention of top Beijing officials and coincided with the Covid pandemic’s emergence, according to a new report being released by Senate Republicans on the pandemic’s origins.

The report, released Monday by a Republican member of the Senate Health Committee, a final version of which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, charts a confluence of unexplained events in that month and concludes the pandemic more likely began from a lab accident than naturally, via an animal infecting humans.

Based on the work of a team of specialists, the 300-page document draws on open source reporting, including medical studies, scientific journals and numerous Chinese government documents.

It estimates that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid, first emerged between Oct. 28 and November 10, 2019—weeks earlier than the Chinese government’s timeline and close to that of an earlier assessment from the U.S. intelligence chief. 

White House Says U.S. Not Ready to Reach Consensus on Covid Origins

A Chinese researcher affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army apparently began work on a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in November 2019, the report says, citing the time needed for research that went into filings for a patent in February 2020. It notes that November 2019 is “before the known outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic” and suggests some in China had earlier knowledge of the virus.

Around the same time, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the Chinese city where the pandemic began, put unusual emphasis on raising its biological safety protocols, according to the report. Steps included a visit from Beijing by a high-ranking biosafety official, remedial biosafety training courses for staff and urgent measures to procure new safety equipment.

After 18 months of research, the team that worked on the Senate report acknowledged it were unable to definitively pinpoint the source of the pandemic, which has killed 6.9 million people worldwide.

Many previous pandemics began when a pathogen-carrying animal or animals infected humans, known as zoonotic transmission. Some scientists say that is how the Covid pandemic began, including some who note that genetic sequences done in 2020 indicate raccoon dogs, which are susceptible to Covid-19, were present at a Wuhan market.

The Senate committee investigators examined both hypotheses. “The preponderance of circumstantial evidence, however, supports an unintentional research-related incident,” said the Senate report. 

“Even though there seems to be precedence for these events to be zoonotic, the evidence just doesn’t support it, and what evidence there is seems to be contrary,” said Robert Kadlec, a biodefense expert and former Health and Human Services assistant secretary in the Trump administration who oversaw the research.

Dr. Kadlec led a team that included an epidemiologist, biodefense experts, lawyers and a State Department China specialist. They were aided by an outside advisory group that included retired intelligence officials, three former directors of U.S. national laboratories, and others.

Arguments over Covid’s origins have become highly politicized between virologists and other scientists who cite evidence pointing to a natural spillover and some researchers, members of the national security community and politicians, especially Republicans, who cite other evidence that they say indicates a laboratory leak. The divisions, and a lack of transparency from Beijing, have hobbled efforts to determine how the virus first infected humans. Knowing the disease’s genesis, researchers on both sides say, might be critical in preventing or curbing future pandemics. 

“It is not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but there certainly is a preponderance of evidence that shows that this virus originated from an unintentional lab leak in Wuhan, China,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.), who is releasing the report. “We won’t be able to prove this in a criminal trial. But I do think there’s enough evidence, if this was a civil case, that we would convince a jury,” said Mr. Marshall, a member of the Health Committee.

The committee’s Democratic majority, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) didn’t respond to requests for comment.

China’s National Health Commission didn’t respond to a request for comment.

China has disputed that the virus could have leaked from one of its labs and has suggested it emerged outside China. Beijing has limited access by investigators with the World Health Organization and declined to turn over some information requested by the global public health agency.

The Senate report expands on an interim version last October that also backed a research-related source for the pandemic.

The office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines office recently sent an expanded intelligence report to Congress that gives more detail on why the Energy Department shifted its view to conclude, with low confidence, that the pandemic likely arose from a lab leak, people familiar with the classified document said. The Journal first reported the Energy Department change in February. 

The Energy Department reached its conclusion that the Covid-19 pandemic probably arose from a laboratory leak because of new intelligence about work being done with the virus at China’s Center for Disease Control in Wuhan, the people familiar said. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also supports a lab leak with medium confidence, a judgment made as part of an assessment the Biden administration ordered in 2021. The FBI, however, focused on coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not the China CDC, the people familiar said.

Four other U.S. intelligence agencies lean toward the natural-transmission theory with low confidence. Despite their differences, all of the intelligence agencies assess that the hypotheses that Covid-19 arose through a laboratory-associated incident or exposure to an infected animal are each “plausible,” Ms. Haines office said in an unclassified version of the 2021 assessment. 

The new Senate report looks at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, which has long been a target of lab-leak proponents because of the extensive coronavirus research being conducted there under biosafety conditions that Western experts consider inadequate.

“China’s progress in biosafety advanced slower than its aspirations for and research of highly pathogenic microorganisms,” the report says. “It is evident that the convergence of sophisticated coronavirus research, government demands for scientific breakthroughs and biosafety problems at the WIV appears to have peaked in the late-summer or early-fall of 2019.”

A senior Chinese biosecurity official traveled from Beijing to the Wuhan Institute on Nov. 19, 2019, bearing instructions from China’s leadership on the “complex and grave situation facing (bio) security work,” the report says, citing the WIV’s own reports. That session was immediately followed by a 2 ½-day remedial biosecurity training course for the WIV and other research institutes in Wuhan, it says.

On the day of the official’s visit, the report says, the WIV issued a short-notice procurement for an air incinerator to address “some problem or failure” with a biosafety autoclave, a machine designed to kill microorganisms via heat and pressure. That was one of numerous procurement notices and patent applications issued in 2019 to address apparent shortcomings in biosecurity, it says.

The report also cites an increase in cases of flulike illness in Wuhan in October and November 2019 that tested negative for influenza, drawing from Chinese epidemiological data and observations by the U.S. consulate in Wuhan. 

At that time, satellite imagery showed an increase in vehicles parked at major hospitals in the city, an indicator that has often been associated with higher hospital occupancy rates. These, the report says, may have been unrecognized initial cases of Covid-19, which didn’t burst into full view until December.

How does the report from the Senate Health Committee change your views on the origins of Covid-19? Join the conversation below.

In early November 2019 “all the guards go up” at the WIV, said Larry Kerr, a former HHS and intelligence official who served as an outside adviser to the study. That, he said, was followed by actions “you normally would not see in a laboratory environment.” 

The report says that Zhou Yusen, a scientist and member of the Chinese military, filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on Feb. 24, 2020, a month after China locked down Wuhan because of the outbreak. 

The patent includes data from blood tests on mice done for vaccine-related experiments, the report said. It said that based on interviews with U.S. vaccine developers, the effort detailed in Dr. Zhou’s work “represents at least two to three months of vaccine development work.” Dr. Zhou later died of unknown causes.

Moderna Inc. began work on its Covid-19 mRNA vaccine in January 2020, once the genetic sequence of the new virus was published, and had initial batches made within weeks.

What Dominion Has to Prove in Its Case Against Fox News

Did the hosts of the country’s most popular cable news network know that Trump’s lies about the election were untrue?

The New Yorker by Clare Malone, April 17, 2023

Downtown Wilmington was already lousy with reporters when the news broke, on Sunday evening, that the Dominion v. Fox trial would be delayed by a day. That afternoon, in an office building across from the courthouse, I caught a glimpse of Michael Wolff—“journalist enfant terrible and New York media scenester”—who is rumored to be working on a book about Fox News, picking up his press pass. In the lobby of my hotel—where Dominion’s lawyers are said to be staying—the check-in line was filled with harried men in typical reporter uniforms of button-downs and slacks. Late-night lobby talk was about what time to wake up in order to secure a spot in the courtroom. All this, even though we knew there’d be no real action; the Wall Street Journal had even reported that settlement talks between Fox and Dominion were taking place, and that Dominion seemed to have softened its position. (The company is apparently not seeking lost-profit damages, which Fox said would lower Dominion’s claim, bringing it closer to a billion dollars in damages, as opposed to the $1.6 billion that Dominion has long contended it is due.)

A few things had already been squared away in Dominion v. Fox. One was that, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Fox had aired falsehoods about the voting-systems company, claiming that its machines had flipped votes to Joe Biden. In a summary judgment released on March 31st, Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court agreed with Dominion’s lawyers, writing that “the evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” The emphatic bold capitalization was the judge’s own, and the ruling was seen as a clear setback for Fox. Davis sent the case onward to a jury trial to determine whether the network had acted with “actual malice.”

Actual malice is the legal standard for defamation that was outlined in the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In this case, Dominion must prove that Fox aired untruths “with reckless disregard”—which can be established if Dominion proves that Fox News “entertained serious doubts as to the truth of [the] publication” or if they had a “high degree of awareness of [its] probable falsity.” That’s a notoriously difficult standard to prove, since it requires some insight into the mind-set of the people or organization that put out defamatory information. And news outlets devote a great deal of time and resources to protect themselves from defamation suits.

Fox News certainly had the infrastructure in place to, theoretically, prevent outright lies from making it to air. The network has a fact-checking-and-research department, known as the Brain Room, and its prominent hosts are supported by teams of producers and editors. Its executives are looped into conversations about coverage. But, in the weeks leading up to the trial, a deluge of texts and e-mails from Fox executives, hosts, and show staff members, which was made public in discovery, revealed a corporate culture that seemed to prioritize appealing to an increasingly hard-right segment of its audience over the actual practice of journalism. “Getting creamed by CNN!” Rupert Murdoch wrote to Fox News’ C.E.O., Suzanne Scott, in the days after the network called the election for Joe Biden. “Guess our viewers don’t want to watch it.” The Fox star Tucker Carlson wrote to a producer that the network was “playing with fire” and risked losing the trust of its viewers. “With Trump behind it,” he wrote, “an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.” Such revelations led to a gleeful frenzy of coverage about the network, but now, in Wilmington, specific facts must be proven.

The actual-malice section of the Dominion brief gives a good idea of how the company’s courtroom strategy will play out. Dominion lists twenty instances of alleged defamation, which the lawyers say occurred across Fox’s Web site, social media, and six of its shows—“Lou Dobbs Tonight,” “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” “Fox & Friends,” “Hannity,” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight”—and at the direction of people at Fox News who Dominion says knew that the statements were false and let them air anyway. Those people include not just well-known hosts but their producers, network executives, and the very top brass: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the father-and-son duo that controls Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp.

The Murdochs’ decision-making power at Fox News has been a hotly contested pretrial subject. A pivotal contention made by Dominion is that the network aired lies about the voting-machine company with the implicit approval of Fox Corp’s most senior decision-makers. Parts of Rupert Murdoch’s own deposition seemed to support that argument; when asked if he could have ordered Fox News to keep Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell—the two lawyers for the Trump campaign who spread lies about Dominion on Fox shows—off the network, Murdoch said, “I could have, but I didn’t.” Last week, it was reported that Murdoch was expected to testify in the early days of the trial—an outcome that Fox News’ legal team had wanted to avoid. In March, Fox’s lawyers suggested that Murdoch shouldn’t have to testify, given covid concerns. Davis, the judge, rejected the request, noting that Murdoch, who is ninety-two, had recently announced both his fifth engagement (which reportedly lasted only two weeks) and travel plans to Los Angeles, Montana, London, and New York. “Don’t make me look like an idiot,” Davis told the Fox lawyers. (A Wilmington attorney who’s argued before Davis told NPR that the judge was a bit like Cool Hand Luke—“In court, he never shows any emotion, and I mean that in a good way”—so the harsh rebuke was notable.)

Reckless: Life and Love in an Underwater City

Then, in pretrial hearings last week, Davis excoriated Fox’s lawyers for failing to disclose key information in a timely fashion, including the fact that Rupert Murdoch is a corporate officer at Fox News. Fox’s defense attorneys have long argued that Murdoch, though a chair of Fox’s parent company, had little to do with the day-to-day running of the network. In light of the disclosure, Dominion’s lawyers claimed that they had been litigating under a false premise and that they should have been able to access more documents in discovery pertaining to Murdoch. Davis said that Fox’s lawyers have “a credibility problem” and that he would likely appoint a special master to investigate Fox’s handling of the discovery process; he also said that he had previously sought clarity about Murdoch’s role at Fox News and never heard back from their legal team. “This is very serious,” Davis said. “By the way, omission is a lie.” (Fox has since apologized for the confusion.)

Dominion’s lawyers also complained that they were still learning of pertinent information not from Fox but from media reports and from court filings in a separate case. According to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Dominion cited an NPR report from last week that said Fox’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, “repeatedly sought to devote an hour-long Sunday evening special following the 2020 elections to set out and debunk the leading myths bolstering Trump’s baseless claims of fraud,” but network executives never gave him a final answer on the pitch. Dominion reportedly told the judge that they had not received any documents from Fox related to this incident. Nor, they said, had Fox informed them of the existence of tapes of Giuliani speaking with Bartiromo, which have been cited in a harassment and toxic-work-environment lawsuit against Fox News filed by Bartiromo’s former producer, Abby Grossberg. Grossberg said that she had surrendered that evidence to Fox, but that it apparently hadn’t shown up in the discovery process for Dominion. (Fox said they “produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg” when they first learned of its existence.)

Grossberg, who is likely to appear as a witness for Dominion, is a curious figure in the whole saga. A former producer for Bartiromo, she is one of the individuals listed by Dominion as personally responsible for allowing defamatory statements on air. In recent weeks, Grossberg publicly claimed that Fox’s lawyers had coached her to give misleading answers in her deposition, including a statement that the show did not have an obligation to correct false information presented by a guest. Grossberg has since said that she “had been conditioned and felt coerced to give this response that simultaneously painted her in a negative light as a professional.” (Fox has called the claims of coaching Grossberg into making misleading statements “patently false.”) She told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden that she was “bullied,” and has generally framed her involvement as a case of sexist scapegoating to spare male higher-ups. But Grossberg’s own messages reveal that she was, at least occasionally, sympathetic to the election-fraud narrative. In texts with Bartiromo, she called the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams a “lunatic” and said that former Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler had been too “timid” in talking about purported voter fraud. Grossberg shared a video of the former Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn pushing fraud claims and wrote “he’s brilliant.” While Grossberg’s workplace allegations are genuinely alarming—routine antisemitism and liberal use of the C-word to describe women—she herself seemed at home in the Fox culture of being only loosely tethered to the truth.

Even without damaging witnesses like Grossberg, Fox was already hobbled going into the trial. Judge Davis has ruled that the network can’t argue that it covered the lies about Dominion because Trump’s fixation on supposed voter fraud made them newsworthy. Davis also said Fox couldn’t argue it was not liable because guests like Powell said the defamatory statements, not its own hosts. “It’s a publication issue, not a who-said-it issue,” he said, meaning, a news outlet bears the ultimate responsibility for what makes it onto air.

In a statement on Friday, Fox seemed to be positioning its defense under the banner of the First Amendment: “Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished first amendment rights.”A Fox spokesperson also pointed to data showing that the network’s ratings have been unaffected by the case and that Dominion had outperformed revenue forecasts for 2022, casting doubt on the company’s requested damages. It was, perhaps, an indication that the network has shifted its focus to mitigating its financial exposure in the case.

At 6:30 a.m. on Monday, there were already a dozen reporters and professional line-waiters sitting on a marble bench outside the court. Television crews were setting up their shots, with bright lights that made for a harshly artificial morning sun. Around 9 a.m., Davis—tan with very white hair and thin-rimmed glasses—walked into the courtroom. He spoke to two lawyers and nine or so rows of media. “This is not a press conference,” Davis said, “I don’t do that.” He spoke so quietly that the whole room seemed to lean in simultaneously, straining to hear him over their deafening typing. Wolff, seated in the first row of spectators, cupped his hands around his ears. “This is not unusual,” the judge said of the delay. Most trials lasting longer than two weeks—this one is scheduled for six—have some delay of one kind or another. He then sidebarred with the two attorneys, with white noise playing over a speaker so reporters couldn’t hear what was going on, and adjourned for the day. Barring a settlement, proceedings are set to start again at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. ♦

Analysis: Norway crude mops up in Europe as Russia's Urals heads east

The EU embargo imposed in December on Russian seaborne oil imports has allowed other oil-producing countries to enter Europe. It is now the primary raw material for refineries in Germany, Poland, and Finland.

Reuters editing by Germán & Co

MOSCOW, April 18 (Reuters) - The clear winner in the race to replace Russian oil at Europe's refineries is Norway's Johan Sverdrup crude, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and traders.

Johan Sverdrup was launched in 2019, making it a relative newcomer compared to Russia's Urals grade.

Initially sold mostly to Asia, an EU ban on Russian seaborne oil imports imposed in December has opened up the European market where the medium sour grade has become a primary feedstock for refiners in countries such as Germany, Poland and Finland.

It is now the Russians who have to pay for the longer voyages to Asia, where India and China continue to buy, while Johan Sverdrup has become one of the most desirable crudes in northwest Europe.

Johan Sverdrup and Urals are both medium-sour grades with high diesel yields, with the Norwegian grade very close in quality to its Russian competitor and a lower sulphur content.

European refiners import a wide variety of grades from around the world including sweet crude from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Africa, for example, for producing naphtha and gasoline.

"Johan Sverdrup has become a key element in Europe's oil industry, effectively replacing Urals as the medium sour grade of reference," said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst in Kpler.

Poland's imports of Johan Sverdrup via the port of Gdansk in March jumped to record of more than 8 million barrels, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Poland stopped receiving Russian oil in February, with top refiner PKN Orlen ending its only remaining supply contract with Tatneft.

PKN Orlen's Mazeikiu refinery in Lithuania is also ramping up Johan Sverdrup purchases, taking at least two cargoes this month totalling about 1.2 million barrels.

The grade also now accounts for at least a half of Finland's monthly oil imports, the Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Demand has supported Johan Sverdrup differentials on a free on board (FOB) basis which firmed shortly after the EU embargo on seaborne Urals, and jumped to a premium to dated Brent for a while in February, traders said.

PRODUCTION LIMIT

Norway's Equinor (EQNR.OL) can currently produce 720,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Johan Sverdrup but has said it would explore the possibility of raising output to 755,000 bpd.

While Europe boosts its buying, Johan Sverdrup shipments to Asia have fallen off sharply.

In 2021 Asian demand topped 100 million barrels versus just 2 million barrels shipped so far this year, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Urals crude is taking up the slack in Asia, with sales increasing 10 fold in 2022 and further this year.

Urals sales in Asia have already matched half of last year's volume, pointing to record shipments in 2023, the data showed.

Some Russian crude still reaches Europe, as well. Bulgaria received an EU waiver to continue imports of Urals crude while Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic continue to import via the Druzhba pipeline.

Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

India and China snap up Russian oil in April above 'price cap'

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest that Russian Urals oil cargo loaded in the first half of April is mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

Reuters

MOSCOW, April 17 (Reuters) - India and China have snapped up the vast majority of Russian oil so far in April at prices above the Western price cap of $60 per barrel, according to traders and Reuters calculations.

That means the Kremlin is enjoying stronger revenues despite the West's attempts to curb funds for Russia's military operations in Ukraine.

A G7 source told Reuters on Monday the Western price cap would remain unchanged for now, despite pressure from some European Union countries, such as Poland, to lower the cap to increase pressure on Moscow.

The advocates of the cap say it reduces revenues for Russia while allowing oil to flow, but its opponents say it is too soft to force Russia to backtrack on its activities in Ukraine.

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest Russian Urals oil cargoes that loaded in the first half of April are mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

India accounts for more than 70% of the seaborne supplies of the grade so far this month and China for about 20%, Reuters calculations show.

Meanwhile, lower freight rates and smaller discounts for Urals against global benchmarks nudged the daily price of the grade back above the cap earlier in April from a period of trading below.

India and China have not agreed to abide by the price cap, but the West had hoped the threat of sanctions might deter traders from helping those countries buy oil above the cap.

Average discounts for Urals were at $13 per barrel to dated Brent on a DES (delivered ex-ship) basis in Indian ports and $9 to ICE Brent in Chinese ports, according to traders, while shipping costs were $10.5 a barrel and $14 a barrel respectively for loadings from Baltic ports to India and China.

That means the Urals price on a free on board (FOB) basis in Baltic ports, allowing about $2 per barrel of additional transport costs, has been slightly above $60 per barrel so far in April, Reuters calculations show.

Shipping costs have come down significantly in recent weeks as Russian port ice conditions eased and more tankers became available.

Freight rates for Urals cargoes loading in Baltic ports for delivery to India have eased to $7.5-$7.6 million from $8-$8.1 million two weeks ago, two traders said.

The cost of tanker shipment from Baltic ports to China was $10 million, down from nearly $11 million a couple of weeks ago, they added.

During winter, freight costs for Urals cargoes jumped above $12 million for both India and China.

Lower freight costs suggest Russian oil suppliers have secured enough vessels even given long distances, the traders said.

Meanwhile, output cuts announced by the OPEC+ group of oil producers at the start of April have also boosted values for various grades around the world, including Urals.

Urals prices in Indian ports had traded at a discount of $14-$17 per barrel to dated Brent on a DES basis in March, while the price at Chinese ports was around $11 per barrel against ICE Brent.

The power of a volcanic eruption: This one was bigger than any U.S. nuclear blast

A new study estimated the Tonga volcanic explosion was 15 megatons, equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT

TWP by Kasha Patel, Updated April 14, 2023 

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the 15-megaton blast as 15,000 tons. The article has been corrected.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai undersea volcano eruption in 2022 was larger than any natural explosion in the past century or even any U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a study released Friday in Science Advances. It rivals the massive Krakatau volcanic explosion near Indonesia in 1883 that took more than 36,000 lives, though the Tongan volcanic explosion in the southwest Pacific caused four deaths.

“The only way you can make an explosion of this size is with a hydrogen bomb,” said Sam Purkis, lead author of the study and marine geoscientist at the University of Miami. “This is way off the charts of anything” in human experience.

Using satellite data, field observations and drone mapping, the team created a simulation of the eruption and resulting tsunami waves to provide a new detailed look of the explosive event. They found tsunami waves reached heights of 45 meters (148 feet) on Tonga’s Tofua Island and up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country’s most populated island and site of its capital Nukuʻalofa. The study also showed why the tsunami was particularly damaging but how it could have been much worse.

Since the Jan. 15, 2022, eruption, researchers have uncovered several records reached during the event. It released the most water vapor into the atmosphere by a volcano on record, enough to fill 58,000 swimming pools, which may temporarily warm the climate in years to come. It set a world record for highest volcano plume in the satellite record, sending ash 36 miles high into the atmosphere, surpassing what many scientists had considered physically feasible. It triggered the fastest atmospheric waves ever observed at 720 mph, circling the planet at least six times.

Weeks after the eruption, co-author Shane Cronin from the University of Auckland and his colleagues visited the area to examine the damage on the ground. Climbing mountainsides and using drone imagery, they found downed trees and vegetation high along the coast.

“For the first time now, we can really confirm on the ground that this happened,” said Purkis, chief scientist at the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation that helped gather data of the underwater terrain for the model as well. “It’s an event which is unique in modern history.”

On Jan. 15, witnesses reported hearing two blasts shortly before 5 p.m. local in Nuku‘alofa, about 40 miles away from the submarine volcano. Plumes began rising like an umbrella over the island within 30 minutes. Despite the sounds and visible plume, Purkis said these two blasts were probably small and did not trigger any meaningful tsunami. Then, two more much louder booms were reported. This time, the blasts triggered damaging tsunami waves on the western coast and city center of Nuku‘alofa.

But then came the fifth — and most powerful — blast.

Running simulations and gauging pressure changes from broken windows on surrounding islands, the team estimated the strength of the last blast wave to be 15 megatons (equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT). That’s roughly equivalent to the largest nuclear test performed by the United States.

The last blast was so large that it physically displaced large amounts of seawater, creating the massive local tsunami. If you were theoretically at the center of the blast when it occurred, you would have then been standing on dry seafloor, Purkis said. The simulation suggests that one minute after the blast, the displaced wave was 85 meters high — “mind boggling and hard to believe,” he said. By the time it reached Tonga’s Tofua Island, the team’s ground observations showed that the wave was 45 meters high, although Purkis said that might be an underestimate.

The team found that the shallower waters toward the shore played an important part in slowing down and dampening the waves. As the water moves toward the shore, it drags along the sea floor and slows down. It’s the same reason big surfer waves further out in the ocean don’t knock us off our feet on shore. One by one, the waves from each blast slowed down as they reached the coral reef platforms but remained circling in the shallow water. But Purkis said the waves from the different blasts caught up with one another, prolonging the tsunami risk.

The most powerful blast, Purkis explained, was created by seawater infiltrating into the hot magma and exploding, created a steam-generated eruption. The first four blasts probably fractured the rocks, so that a huge quantity of water could infiltrate the magma chamber and create the incredibly large fifth blast.

While not addressed in this new study, other researchers have hypothesized what caused the series of blasts to occur. Volcanologist Melissa Scruggs and her colleagues propose a “magma hammer,” or magma rushing up and hitting the volcano, then dropping back down into the magma chamber several times. Scruggs said the sudden rise of magma was caused by a sudden drop of pressure, which was observed in the seismic record at the time of the largest eruption.

“This seismic signature isn’t common for volcanic eruptions, and has never been described before,” Scruggs, a researcher at University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an email. “This isn’t to say it’s never happened, just that our scientific instruments have never recorded such a signature.”

Scruggs also points out that the volcano started erupting in December, but scientists don’t know what initially triggered the beginning of the eruption. Purkis said, “This is just what volcanoes do.” He said they occasionally come to life, and magma starts moving around in the plumbing of the beast.

Co-author Dan Slayback said he was surprised at “simply how an event of such magnitude can appear with little apparent warning.” Smaller eruptions had been occurring since December 2021 but had slowed down by mid-January.

“I don’t think anyone particularly foresaw the big bang on the [Jan.] 15,” said Slayback, a research scientist at NASA. He called the event a 1-in-500-year eruption for this region.

Given the magnitude and duration of the event, Purkis said the death toll could have been a lot worse, as with Krakatau. Yet he credits a quick response from the community and a low number of tourists in the area because of the coronavirus pandemic. It also happened during the day when people were out and about. The main city in Tonga is also sheltered behind an island in a lagoon, which provided protection from an incoming tsunami.

“This was a very serious event, but won’t be remembered in the same way as Krakatau. But that’s a good thing,” Purkis said.

The study “did exceptional work moving the research on the 2022 local tsunami forward,” said coastal engineer Ignacio Sepulveda Oyarzun, who was not involved in the study. He commended the authors’ use of information from citizens, such as the report of blasts and plume timing and broken glass, to constrain the model.

“I did not know about the tsunamigenic potential of a possible fifth blast,” said Sepulveda Oyarzun, a professor at San Diego State University, who has been studying the mechanism of even farther-reaching tsunami waves from the volcanic eruption, which led to two deaths in Peru and damage as far away as California and New Zealand.

“The effort for understanding volcanic-induced tsunamis extend beyond Tonga, since 1883 for the Krakatau tsunami,” he said. “Ultimately, our goal is to clearly understand these tsunamis and to develop predicting tools which will be of great utility for early warning systems and community preparedness.”

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