A scene of the incident (Photo: Kevan Kamibayashi/US Geological Survey)
Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupted Thursday, sending lava shooting
into the air in a residential neighborhood and prompting mandatory
evacuation orders for nearby homes.
Hawaii County said steam and lava poured out of a crack in Leilani Estates, which is near the town of Pahoa on the Big Island.
Footage shown on local television showed lava spurting into the sky
from a crack in a road. Aerial drone footage showed a line of lava
snaking through a forest.
Resident Jeremiah Osuna captured drone footage of the lava burning through the trees, a scene he described as a "curtain of fire."
"It sounded like if you were to put a bunch of rocks into a
dryer and turn it on as high as you could. You could just smell sulfur
and burning trees and underbrush and stuff," he told Honolulu television station KHON.
Lava fountains were shooting 150 feet (46 meters) in the air, and
molten lava spread out over an area about 200 yards (183 meters) wide
behind one house in Leilani Estates, Big Island resident Ikaika Marzo
told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser .
"It sounds like a jet engine. It's going hard," he said.
County, state and federal officials had been warning residents all
week that they should be prepared to evacuate, as an eruption would give
little warning. Officials at the U.S. Geological Survey on Thursday
raised the volcano's alert level to warning status, the highest
possible, meaning a hazardous eruption is imminent, underway or
suspected.
The county has ordered evacuations for all of Leilani Estates,
which according to the 2010 U.S. Census has a population of 1,500. The
state also mobilized the Hawaii National Guard to assist with
evacuations.
Nearby community centers have opened for shelter.
Ranson Yoneda, the recreation director for a Pahoa community
center, was readying the gymnasium for evacuees after it was selected as
a Red Cross evacuation center.
He said so far, about 15 people have arrived, some with animals, and they are hungry for information.
"They just want to know what's going on because they were told it's a mandatory evacuation," he said by telephone.
The U.S. Geological Survey said new ground cracks were reported
Thursday afternoon. Hot vapor emerged from a crack and spattering lava
began to erupt.
Scientists said areas downslope of the erupting vent were at risk
of being covered by lava. Leilani Estates appeared to be at greatest
risk, but scientists said new vents and outbreaks could occur and it's
not possible to say where.
The eruption comes after days of earthquakes rattled the area's
Puna district. A nearby school was closed due to the ongoing seismic
activity and several roadways cracked under the strain of the constant
temblors.
The Puu Oo crater floor began to collapse Monday, triggering a
series of earthquakes and pushing the lava into new underground
chambers.
The collapse caused magma to push more than 10 miles (16
kilometers) downslope toward the populated southeast coastline of the
island.
USGS geologist Janet Babb said the magma crossed under Highway 130,
which leads to a popular volcano access point, on Tuesday night.
Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency closed the area to visitors on
Tuesday and ordered private tour companies to stop taking people into
the region.
Most of Kilauea's activity has been nonexplosive, but a 1924
eruption spewed ash and 10-ton (9-metric ton) rocks into the sky,
leaving one man dead.
Puu Oo's 1983 eruption resulted in lava fountains soaring over
1,500 feet high. In the decades since, the lava flow has buried dozens
of square miles (kilometers) of land and destroyed many homes.
-AP
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