The first planes carrying aid made it to Tonga several days after it was devastated by a tsunami

• Military planes filled with aid arrived at Tonga's airport on Thursday.
• Planes had been unable to land in the country due to a thick layer of ash on the nation's runway.

The first planes with supplies and disaster relief arrived in Tonga on Thursday, several days after a volcano erupted in the region on January 15, causing a tsunami to hit also the island nation.

According to NPR, the shipments came from planes sent by Australia and New Zealand.

The outlet reported that the planes, which landed at Fua'amotu International Airport in Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, on Thursday, were filled with bottled water, generators, and communication equipment.

Directly after the natural disaster, any planes with supplies were unable to land in the country as its runway was covered in a thick blanket of ash.

Workers had to manually sweep away the ash from the runway in recent days in order for any planes filled with aid to land, 1News New Zealand reported.

Tongan officials have confirmed at least three deaths in connection to the volcanic eruption and tsunami, along with a plethora of damage to the island nation — officials said every house in the village on Mango island, a small Tongan community of around 50, was destroyed in the natural disaster as well.

Another problem that Tongans and aid-providers are facing is the lack of easy communication with the rest of the world after the volcanic eruption destroyed an undersea fiber-optic cable, which could take weeks to be fixed.

Telecom operator Digicel told Reuters that it was able to restore international phone calling capabilities on Wednesday, though the company said full services will not be available until the cable is repaired.