São Paulo
Pita Taufatofua, known as “The Besoun of Tonga” shared reports about the magnitude 7 earthquake that hit the country on Sunday (30). “It was awakened like this … house all swinging and things falling. I hear Tsunami’s warnings now,” he published on Instagram’s stories next to the print of an estimated magnitude earth tremor in 5.6.
Pita Taufatofua became known as “The Tonga Besourish” after photos of him shirtless during the opening ceremony of the Rio-2016 Olympics viralized. His passage at Maracanã stadium sporting his coconut -covered muscles around the world, and he received 45 million mentions on Twitter at the time.
The severity of this Sunday’s phenomenon led the United States authorities to issue a tsunami alert to the region. The tremor was later revised by the Germany Geoscience Research Center for the highest index.
“Tsunami’s warnings are everywhere on the island. It’s estimated now at 7.3. I was told to go to a higher region. We’re close to the water,” he writes on the next story.
“The sirens are stopping … ‘They move inside, to a higher terrain, or to the third level of a concrete or steel building,” he says.
The authorities’ concern is due to the potential impact on the Pacific Islands, which often face seismic events due to their location – the so -called “circle of fire” is a region more prone to this type of phenomenon.
“Then Pita reports having returned home quickly and says she has a family with four children and a baby on the 1st floor of the house, preparing to go to the roof. The athlete says, then, that he is monitoring the city lights and, if they go off, will rise.” There has never been such a large earthquake, “he said.
About two hours later, he posted the last story saying that a second tremor of land hit the region, this time smaller and faster than the first, and that the sirens had returned. There were no new posts after this, shared about 9am from the time of publication of this text.
Pita Taufatofua even participated in the winter games in Pyeongchang (South Korea) in 2018, where she appeared with her flag and without a blouse, despite the very low temperatures, and the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The athlete even competed in Taekwondo and canoeing qualifiers in 2024, but could not qualify for any of them. Even so, he was in Paris, as a mental counselor, supporting athletes from all countries.
