Two months on from the devastating Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption, a family from Nomuka is yet to return home.
An aerial shot of the Sheens' home in Nomuka and concrete piles which were all that was left of it after the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption. Photo: Supplied by Dior Sheen
The village is one of the closest to the volcano - around 70 kilometres away.
Nomuka is only 70km away from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano. Photo: Google maps / Screenshot
The Sheen family have a whale-watching business in Tonga and they took their boat to the volcano's crater to camp on it last year.
But they were in Northland for boat maintenance on 15 January, when the eruption and tsunami caused widespread destruction.
For more than a week, Dior Sheen and her family had no idea how their home on the beach had fared, but as communications were restored, they learned the buildings, vegetation and much of the dirt ground had gone - even large trees and their cyclone bunker.
"There's nothing left standing really. There are some shrubs, and like bare, bare land, and it's all eroded away. Basically, from the photos, all we can see is the concrete stumps left."
The property had small paddocks with farm animals, but the land is now "basically just part of the beach".
"It's all just kind of open and sandy, and it's unrecognisable ... No matter how much I stare at those pictures, I'm just like, 'I don't believe that'."
Sheen said the eruption had "brought up a bit of past trauma" - her family was already grieving the death of her brother, beforehand.
They had many fond memories of him at their home in Nomuka.
"It was a family thing, and it was very emotional losing that, that other part of us."
The Sheens are yet to decide whether they will rebuild and continue their business, but they have had "hundreds" of offers of help.
Dior Sheen is currently based in Tauranga, studying, and her parents are seeing family in Western Australia.
Photo: Supplied by Dior Sheen
