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The Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii erupted and released a cloud of steam into the atmosphere that lasted about an hour, an official with the National Weather Service said today.
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The Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii erupted today, sending a cloud of steam into the sky. Source: Associated Press
The eruption began last night inside the Halema’uma’u crater, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The volcano is located within the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Tom Birchard, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Hawaii, said a new lava flow interacted with a pool of water inside the crater, causing a short-lived but fairly vigorous eruption.
All the water evaporated from the lake and a cloud of vapor shot about nine kilometers into the atmosphere, Birchard said.
The Honolulu National Weather Service issued a warning, warning of ashfall from the volcano. Excessive exposure to ash is an irritant to the eyes and respiratory tract, he said. The agency later said that the eruption was subsiding and that a “low-level vapor cloud” persisted in the area.
At 1 a.m. (midnight NZT), USGS officials told Hawaii News Now that lava fountains were reported shooting about 50 meters into the sky.
The Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory is monitoring the situation.
A 4.4 magnitude earthquake occurred about an hour after the volcano began to erupt.
The USGS said it received more than 500 reports from people who felt the earthquake, but no significant damage to buildings or structures was expected.
Kilauea erupted in 2018, destroying more than 700 homes and spewing enough lava to fill 320,000 Olympic swimming pools. An area more than half the size of Manhattan was buried in up to 24 meters of now hardened lava. The lava flowed out over the course of four months.
