Lava speeds up, crossing roads

Lava oozing out of cracks for two weeks in rural Hawaii neighbourhoods took on new characteristics as fresher magma mixed with decades-old magma, sending a flow towards the ocean.

Since a first fissure opened in a community on May 3, lava has mostly spattered up and collected at the edges of the cracks in the ground. Two neighbourhoods with nearly 2000 people were forced to evacuate as lava claimed 40 structures.

On Saturday, the lava changed dramatically with one fissure ramping up and sending a flow across a road, destroying four more homes and isolating residents, some of whom had to be air-lifted to safety.

The change is attributed to new magma mixing with 1955-era magma in the ground, creating hotter and more fluid flows, scientists said.

“There’s much more stuff coming out of the ground and it’s going to produce flows that move further away,” said Wendy Stovall, a US Geological Survey volcanologist. By yesterday, two of 22 fissures had merged, creating a wide flow advancing at rates of up to 274m per hour. Aerial footage from the USGS showed fastmoving lava advancing to the southeast. The flow was 2.4km from the ocean, scientists said. In the background, the footage showed lava spurting 100m high at one of the fissures. The fountains are created by vents closing, forcing magma to burst through a single outpoint, Stovall said.

If lava threatens main highways, more people will be told to prepare for voluntary evacuation.

A lava flow was less than a kilometre away from Highway 137 and would reach it overnight, officials warned. No one lives in its path and another highway remained open as an escape route, said Hawaii County spokeswoman Janet Snyder.

A handful of people were trapped when lava crossed a road on Saturday and some of them needed to be airlifted to safety. “They shouldn’t be in that area,” said County Managing Director Wil Okabe. Edwin Montoya, who lives with his daughter on her farm near the site where lava crossed the road and cut off access, said the fissure opened and grew quickly.

“It was just a little crack in the ground, with a little lava coming out. Now it’s a big crater.” The Big Island volcano released a small explosion at its summit, sending an ash cloud 3048m into the sky. The USGS’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said eruptions that create even minor amounts of ashfall could occur at any time.

This follows the more explosive eruption on Friday.