Kilauea still pumping a spectacular lava flow
Associated Press
VOLCANO, Hawai'i — Lava from Kilauea volcano flowed over another stretch of isolated road and formed new entry points into the Pacific Ocean yesterday, scientists and other observers said.
Associated Press
"I've never seen so many cascades stretched out over such a considerable distance," said David Jordan, a local photographer and artist who has been making the trip almost daily before dawn to see the lava action since the flow reached the sea late last month.
Fiery lava, flowing through cooled layers of rock, breaks through at a sea bluff and pours into the ocean in the Highcastle area of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. The volcanic show is still drawing large crowds of spectators.
"She's leaking all over," said Steve Young, another self-proclaimed "lava junky" from Volcano Village.
In recent weeks, the lava flow has attracted thousands of visitors — up to 2,500 each night — to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park as viscous lava breaks out along a wide slope of cooled lava and occasionally pours into the ocean, altering the park's landscape.
Authorities say no buildings or major roadways are in danger from the lava, which has been pouring out of Kilauea for more than 19 years — but usually at a much slower pace.
Park rangers say viewers generally are not in danger of being overtaken by lava, but other dangers lurk near the flow, including gas emissions, potential mini-explosions of lava and sprays of scalding water when lava enters the ocean. Higher upslope, lava has also set off forest fires.
Signs warn park visitors against getting too close to the lava.
Visitors' cars have been clogging a lava-shortened road in the park to watch the molten rock pour into the Pacific Ocean along the expanding shoreline.
Several acres of lava and black sand have been added to the park since Kilauea's east rift zone activity at the Pu'u 'O'o vent intensified in May.
For the first time yesterday, lava oozed across a stretch of Chain of Craters Road that had been isolated by separate flows several years ago.
According to a report from scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors Kilauea, three clusters of lava falls were plummeting from cliffs up to 45 feet above the ocean.
"Plopping sounds came when large drops of lava free-fell into the water," said a report on the survey's Web site.
Much of the lava from the vent is flowing through tubes formed under the cooled surface, but the underground channels occasionally break open.
