Parts of the Big Island of Hawaii are under evacuation orders and the rest is on high alert. After several days of warnings, the Kilauea delivered with its first eruption in several years.
Hawaii County civil defense officials ordered some of the 1,500 residents of Leilani Estates in the Puna district, on the eastern coast of the island, to get out late Thursday afternoon as steam and red lava began emerging from a crack in the earth in the Leilani neighborhood.
The eruption was reported at about 4:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. ET), about six hours after a magnitude-5.0 earthquake rattled the active Kilauea volcano following several days of smaller tremors, said the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, an agency of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The observatory said the lava was erupting from the volcano’s lower East Rift Zone. NBC affiliate KHNL of Honolulu quoted residents as saying they could see lava spewing from cracks in roadways.
Frightening and dangerous as it may be, the raw power of nature makes for stunning images.
Lava from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano forces mandatory evacuation and chases locals from their homes. https://t.co/gzMBWCCzxo pic.twitter.com/TQJnvmyXlo
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 4, 2018
This mesmerising footage shows the lava lake overflowing in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano ?https://t.co/PTtfRq7ksg pic.twitter.com/Xab60CNdTX
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 26, 2018
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The saving grace on these is that they are never like Mt St Helens (or Vesuvius) eruptions. Everything just oozes out at a walking pace.Report
We were in Hawaii last week and a couple friends of ours extended their stay to go to the big island through today. Will have to check with them to see if the earthquakes and eruptions were a bonus or terrifying or meh.Report
The flow has shifted around every few years. Back in the 80s (I think) you used to be able to drive up to the flow, then it shifted and covered the road and then (by the late 90s, first time I visited) shifted again so it was about a 3 mile trek over fresh basalt with no shade (or alternatively, no light). I think after that the main crater partially collapsed, and a few years after that, the eruption point shifted to a place outside the national park (but on state reserve wilderness area). I believe this is the first eruption of Kilauea proper since then.
I doubt the earthquakes were a big deal, though a few years ago a substantial one hit Oahu and knocked out the electricity grid for a couple of days, maybe a week.Report
USGS twitter looks to be a great source for updates and context. this has the latest map. It seems to me that there are eruptions where there’s never been any before (in living memory) and that’s why such a large area of (relatively) populated parts of the island are under threat.Report