More tales of trauma and near misses are emerging out of Tonga, which is still struggling to fix its international telecommunications link.
Vika Tukuafu, a Year 11 student from Brisbane, was on a video call to her parents in Tonga and lost contact as the tsunami waves started rolling in.
"It was terrifying," she said.
"I could see my younger sister; she said, 'See, there's a tsunami here', and I could see she was scared.
"And then my other sister, I just heard her from the background crying and praying at the same time."
Vika heard from her parents again two days after the eruption.
"We give all honour and glory back to God. They're all safe," she said.
The Tukuafu family, who own the Vakaloa Beach Resort in the village of Kanokupolu, on the north-western tip of the main Tongan Island of Tongatapu, now keep in contact via telephone and social media.
"People are having it very tough here in Kanokupolu," said Vika's mother Marian in a Facebook video post.
"A lot of people [are] losing their homes, businesses, having no shelter and drinking water.
"But we are still grateful to be breathing."
Their resort, which was rebuilt after multiple cyclones, is now destroyed.
"It is completely wiped out," Vika told 7.30.
"And that will have a massive impact on the employees and the people that earn their living from the resort.
"But then again, glory and honour that they're still alive, you know."
A traumatic escape
Tongan Australian broadcaster Mele Ngauamo had to wait nearly a week before she heard her two sisters and brother were safe.
One of her sisters had a tough time driving to higher ground with her family, as hot ashes came down on the windscreen.
"They had to use up all their little drinking water for the kids that were in the car for the [car] wipers," she said.
"You couldn't see … the car in front of you, so they had to use up all their drinking water.
In a video shot by Broadcom Broadcasting journalist Marian Kupu near the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa a couple of days after the volcanic eruption, two foreign teachers explained what it was like on the day of the explosion.
"It was really loud … we could not hear each other — it just [broke] our eardrums," said Solomon Island teacher Quenda Vovo.
The tsunamis destroyed their school.
"All of our valuable stuff for our school resources … laptops, you can name it, [it's] all gone," she said.
As part of the clean-up, villagers are sweeping up the thick volcanic ash on the roads to make temporary traffic hazards.
"Road bumps are created by the villagers because they want the cars to slow down due to dust," Ms Kupu said.
Drinking water a critical issue
While much-needed relief supplies have begun arriving in volcano-ravaged Tonga, aid agencies warn water will continue to be a critical problem.
"We've got two issues," said Katie Greenwood from the International Red Cross.
"The ash fall has created problems for drinking water and has gotten into rainwater tanks and the like, and there has been saltwater intrusion from tsunami waves into groundwater."
The Kingdom of Tonga estimates 84 per cent of its population of just over 100,000 people have been affected by the ash and tsunamis from the January 15 explosion of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano.
The worst affected areas are the west coast of the main island of Tongatapu, including the capital Nuku'alofa, and the smaller islands to the north-east of the volcano in the Ha'apai group.
"There are many of those islands where all infrastructure, all structures and homes have been completely wiped out," Ms Greenwood said.
