Tonga volcano ‘hundreds of times’ more powerful than Hiroshima bomb explosion, NASA says

The undersea volcano that erupted off the coast of Tonga this month was “hundreds of times” more powerful than the nuclear bomb that hit Hiroshima in World War II, according to NASA.

The Jan. 15 blast of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano, which triggered tsunami waves which stretched to the Pacific Coast in the U.S. The eruption, which spewed ash across the many of Tonga islands, was heard as far away as Alaska.

“The blast released hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion,” NASA said in a statement. “For comparison, scientists estimate Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980 with 24 megatons and Krakatoa burst in 1883 with 200 megatons of energy.”