Hawaii Volcano Eruption: Residents Flee Part Of Big Island

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano erupted Thursday, sending at least 1,700 people from their homes and molten lava through forest land and onto paved streets. Amid uncertainty about how long the eruption will last, Hawaii Gov. David Ige activated the National Guard to help with evacuations and provide security to almost homes left empty by residents fleeing the spewing lava.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the dramatic eruption, which at one point shot lava geysers 150 feet into the air. The eruption wasn’t entirely unexpected after about 300 earthquakes rattled the Puna district on the eastern side of the Big Island earlier this week.

Resident Jeremiah Osuna, who captured drone footage of the lava as it chewed through trees, described 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.

Ikaika Marzo told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser that lava fountains shot about 150 feet into the air about 5:30 p.m. and that lava had spread over a 200-yard-wide area behind a house in Leilani Estates.

“It sounds like a jet engine," Marzo said. "It’s going hard."

Television footage of the dramatic eruption shows line of lava fountains from Kilauea bursting up under a road and adjoining gardens.

Asta Miklius, a geophysicist with the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, told The Associated Press it's hard to predict how long the eruption will last.

"One of the parameters is going to be whether the summit magma reservoir starts to drain in response to this event, and that has not happened yet," Asta Miklius, a geophysicist with the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, told The Associated Press. "There is quite a bit of magma in the system. . It won't be just an hours-long eruption probably, but how long it will last will depend on whether the summit magma reservoir gets involved. And so we are watching that very, very closely."

U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist Wendy Stovall, an expert on Kilauea, told the Los Angeles Times the USGS will monitor the situation around the clock.

"How the eruption proceeds from this point is yet to be seen. … It just depends upon whether there is enough magma in the system to keep on supplying what's been coming out of the surface," she said.

Areas downslope of the erupting vent are at risk of being covered with lava, including Leilani Estates, which appeared to be at the greatest risk. Lava spewed into Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Garden on the Big Island’s eastern edge, and residents were ordered to evacuate to a community center that is serving as a shelter.

Maija Stenback lives about six blocks away from the eruption in Leilani Estates.

"It was like when someone plays bass really heavy, and you can feel the bass — you could really feel the power and the lava — the color was unbelievable and the sound was unbelievable," she said, according to a BBC story. "It sounds very explosive, like something really explosive is coming out of a little hole, it's spitting out as hard as it can. It's not so much what you hear, it's what you feel."

Sulfur dioxide gas levels in the evacuation area are extremely high, according to the Hawaii Fire Department, and people with respiratory issues need to comply with the mandatory evacuation order.

Some people were resisting, but not Stephen Clapper.

“"We had to evacuate. My mother was out of portable oxygen, so that's a first concern. She's 88 years old," Clapper told KHON. "I told my mother this morning to pack a bag just in case, a go bag, and I ran in, grabbed the dogs, put them in a crate."

Michael Haley quickly gathered what he could and evacuated after explosions of lava bursts from the long, fiery fissure about two blocks from his home and business, Hale Hale Hostel and Vacation Rentals.

“I looked around and asked myself ‘what’s valuable?’” Hale told the Star-Advertiser. “In that moment, nothing looked valuable. I filled the (truck) cab with mostly junk and that was it.”

New vents and outbreaks could occur, but they're unpredictable, according to the scientists.

“The opening phases of fissure eruptions are dynamic,” the Hawaii Volcano Observatory said. “Additional vents and new lava outbreaks may occur and at this time it is not possible to say where new vents may occur.”

The Puu Oo' cone of Kilauea, Hawaii Island's youngest volcano, erupted in 1983 and continues to flow from its eastern shoulder. The crater acted as a reservoir that held the lava as it bubbled up from the surface and eventually flowed back underground and eventually out to sea.

That changed Monday, when the reservoir for lava collapsed.

"The bottom kind of fell out," Stovall told the LA Times.

Thursday's eruption was similar to the one in 1983, in which cracks in the ground shot lava into the air like a fountain and eventually spewed an 835-foot geyser of lava. It destroyed several homes in the Royal Gardens subdivision outside of Kalapana.

Efforts to block lava flows with barriers in Kapoho were unsuccessful and lava overwhelmed the town.

"They tried to do things to stop the lava — they built dams, they built barriers," Stovall said. "That didn't do anything to stop the lava. … You can't really stop a volcano from erupting. If there's magma coming into the system continually, it's just going to push everything out of its way. The eruption will stop when the eruption stops."

Video: Jeremiah Osuna via Facebook

Image: Molten rock slides into part of Leilani Estates after the Kilauea Volcano reached the surface Thursday afternoon. (Photo by U.S. Geological Survey)