Water crisis looms for tsunami-hit Tonga; New Zealand help on the way

Two New Zealand navy vessels will arrive in Tonga on Friday carrying critical water supplies for the Pacific island nation reeling from a volcanic eruption and tsunami and largely cut off from the outside world.

Hundreds of homes in Tonga's smaller outer islands have been destroyed, and at least three people were killed after Saturday's huge eruption triggered tsunami waves, which rolled over the islands causing what the government has called an unprecedented disaster.

With its airport smothered by volcanic ash and communications badly hampered by the severing of an undersea cable, information on the scale of the devastation has mostly