Hawaiians have had tough time halting lava
HONOLULU • Prayer. Bombs. Walls. Over the decades, people have tried all of them to staunch the flow of lava from Hawaii’s volcanoes as it lumbered toward roads, homes and infrastructure.
Now Mauna Loa — the world’s largest active volcano — is erupting again, and lava is slowly approaching a major thoroughfare connecting the Big Island’s east and west sides. And once more, people are asking if anything can be done to stop or divert the flow.
“It comes up every time there’s an eruption and there’s lava heading toward habited areas or highways. Some people say ‘Build a wall’ or ‘Board up’ and other people say, ‘No don’t!,’” said Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii.
Humans have rarely had much success stopping lava and, despite the world’s technological advances, doing so is still difficult and dependent on the force of the flow and the terrain. But many in Hawaii also question the wisdom of interfering with nature and Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fire.
Attempts to divert lava have a long history in Hawaii.
In 1881, the governor of Hawaii Island declared a day of prayer to stop lava from Mauna Loa as it headed for Hilo. The lava kept coming.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Princess Regent Lili’uokalani and her department heads went to Hilo and considered ways to save the town. They developed plans to build barriers to divert the flow and place dynamite along a lava tube to drain the molten rock supply.
Princess Ruth Ke’elikolani approached the flow, offered brandy and red scarves and chanted, asking Pele to stop the flow and go home. The flow stopped before the barriers were built.
More than 50 years later, Thomas A. Jaggar, the founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, asked U.S. Army Air Services to send planes to bomb a Mauna Loa vent to disrupt lava channels.
Lt. Col. George S. Patton (who later became famous as a general in Europe during the Second World War) directed planes to drop 272-kilogram demolition bombs, according to a National Park Service account of the campaign.
Jagger said the bombing helped to “hasten the end of the flow,” but Howard Stearns, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist on board the last bombing run, was doubtful. In his 1983 autobiography, he wrote: “I am sure it was a coincidence.”
Thinking you should physically divert lava is a Western idea rooted in the notion that humans have to control everything, said Kealoha Pisciotta, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner.
She said people need to adjust to the lava, not the other way around.