UN officials say inbound flights to Tonga from Australia and New Zealand should be available from Thursday. Tonga's government confirmed three people have died due to the natural disaster. Local telecom operator Digicel says international telephone connectivity has been restored but internet connectivity is likely to take weeks or more to be restored after an undersea cable was damaged. Cao Xiaolin, Chinese ambassador to Tonga, said houses on some of the islands were all destroyed by the tsunami and the exact number of casualties is still being counted.