Hawaii braces for long upheaval
PAHOA, HAWAII » Hundreds of anxious residents on the Big Island of Hawaii hunkered down Saturday for what could be weeks or months of upheaval as the dangers from an erupting Kilauea volcano continued to grow.
Lava spurted from volcanic vents, toxic gas filled the air and strong earthquakes — including a magnitude 6.9 temblor on Friday — rocked an already jittery population. The trifecta of natural threats forced the evacuation of more than 1,700 people from communities near the lava and prompted the closure of parks, college campuses and a section of the main road through the area on the Big Island’s southern tip.
Five structures have burned and thousands of customers briefly lost power from one of the larger quakes.
Tesha “Mirah” Montoya, 45, said toxic fumes escaping from the lava vents weren’t enough to make her family evacuate, but the tipping point were the earthquakes. Montoya, her husband and daughter don’t know how long they will be away from the three-story octagonal house they built nearly 20 years ago from a patch of “raw jungle.”
“My heart and soul’s there,” she said in a phone interview from a cabin on the north side of the Big Island, where the family had hunkered down. “I’m nothing without the land. It’s part of my being.”
Tina Neal, the scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, warned distressed residents at a community meeting late Friday that eruptions could last longer than the ones from earlier this week, and earthquakes and aftershocks could continue for days, even weeks.
The lava lake at Kilauea’s summit crater dropped significantly, suggesting the magma was moving eastward toward Puna, a mostly rural district of forests, papaya farms and lava fields left by past eruptions.
Officials warned of the dangers of spattering hot rock and high levels of sulfuric gas that could threaten the elderly and people with breathing problems.