SYDNEY -- Tonga's first outbreak of COVID-19 and the resulting lockdown have complicated the island nation's recovery from the volcanic eruption of a month ago.
"There has been a big cleanup, but the cleanup is not finished," said Mary Lyn Fonua, managing editor of the Matangi Tonga Online news website, in a telephone interview Monday. There is "still more work to do and the ash affects the drainage on the roads, so when it rained, [there was] a lot of flooding," Fonua said.