UK woman dies trying to rescue dogs from tsunami
Family confirm charity worker’s body has been found after she was swept away after Tonga eruption
THE body of a British charity worker has been found after she was swept away by the tsunami in Tonga as she tried to rescue her dogs.
Angela Glover, 50, was caught in the surging tide with her husband, James, on Saturday, when an undersea volcanic eruption unleashed chaos around the Pacific. It was the first death confirmed on the island nation in the wake of the disaster, which inflicted significant damage on the capital, Nuku’alofa, and brought down communication lines.
The eruption was so powerful it flooded coastlines from Japan to the United States.
Yesterday, Mrs Glover’s brother, Nick Eleini, confirmed that her body had been found. She ran an animal rescue shelter and was said to have been attempting to rescue up to five dogs with her husband when they were engulfed by the wave.
Mr Glover clung to a tree to avoid being washed away, but Mrs Glover lost her grip. Only one of their dogs is believed to have been recovered.
Mr Eleini flew from his home in Sydney, Australia, to be with their mother, Jennifer, 85, in Hove, East Sussex. He said: “We are devastated at the situation in Tonga.
“Earlier today my family was informed that the body of my sister, Angela, had been found. Angela had been living with her husband James in Tonga since getting married.
“I haven’t even got the words to describe how we’re feeling at the moment. This is just such a terrible shock. We’re ordinary people, stuff like this just doesn’t happen to people like us, but then it does.”
Paying tribute to his sister, he said: “She was beautiful. She was a ray of sunshine. She would just walk into a room and lighten the room up and she loved her life, both when she was working in London and then she achieved her life’s dream of going to work in the South Pacific. She was just a lovely girl, she was the centre of our family and we are just broken.”
Mrs Glover and her husband moved to Tonga in 2015, where she started the Tonga Animal Welfare Society to provide shelter for stray dogs and he opened the Happy Sailor Tattoo Parlour in the capital. Mr Glover was with the search party that found his wife’s body, Mr Eleini said.
‘We are devastated. Earlier today my family was informed that the body of my sister had been found’
The eruption of the volcano cast a towering black pall over Tonga which initially prevented planes carrying essential supplies from arriving.
Australia and New Zealand yesterday sent surveillance flights to assess the damage as the Tongan government appealed for help to provide fresh drinking water and food. Information from the country has been hard to come by owing to the communication problems caused by the disaster.
Mosese Sitapa, one of more than 30,000 Tongans in Australia, told Channel 9 he was video calling his four-yearold son, Elone, when the tsunami smashed through their home. “I just talked to him and he kept playing with his toys. It was so sad,” he said. He has not heard from Elone or his mother since. Lupe Fisi’ikaile, a Tongan living in the Australian capital, told The Canberra Times she had not been able to contact her 72-year-old mother or brother’s family. “I didn’t want to tell my kids and niece at first but I knew it was going to come up with all the news,” she said.
Zed Seselja, Australia’s minister for the Pacific, said initial reports suggested there had been no mass casualties, but there was “significant damage” to roads and bridges. Up to 80,000 people there could be affected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told the BBC.
Preparations are also being made to send a specialist cable repair ship from Papua New Guinea to fix an underwater cable and restore Tonga’s internet.