Falehau is a village on the island of

Niuatoputapu Niuatoputapu (''The Sacred Niua'') is a volcanic island in the island nation of Tonga, Pacific Ocean. Its highest point is , and its area is . Its name means ''sacred island''. Older names for the island are Traitors Island or Keppel Island. ...

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

. The population is 218. The other two villages on Niuatoputapu are

Hihifo Hihifo is the main village on the island of Niuatoputapu in the Kingdom of Tonga. Hihifo (which means 'west' in the Tongan language) is situated on the west side of Niuatoputapu and is the main centre for public and government facilities that s ...

, which is the main village on the island, and

Vaipoa Vaipoa is one of three villages on the island of Niuatoputapu in Tonga. The population is 172. The other two villages on Niuatoputapu are Hihifo, which is the main village on the island, and Falehau. Niuatoputapu was extensively damaged in the ...

. Falehau was extensively damaged by the

2009 Samoa earthquake and tsunami The 2009 Samoa earthquake and tsunami took place on 29 September 2009 in the southern Pacific Ocean adjacent to the Tonga–Kermadec subduction zone. The submarine earthquake occurred in an extensional environment and had a moment magnitude o ...

. The tsunami resulted from an 8.0 M_w

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

in the

Samoan Islands The Samoan Islands () are an archipelago covering in the central Pacific Ocean, South Pacific, forming part of Polynesia and of the wider region of Oceania. Political geography, Administratively, the archipelago comprises all of the Samoa, Indep ...

region at 06:48:11 local time on 29 September 2009 (17:48:11

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

).Magnitude 8.0 – SAMOA ISLANDS REGION
Report o
U.S. Geological Service
s website. Retrieved online d.d. 29 September 2009.

References

Populated places in Niuas {{tonga-geo-stub