Kilauea Destroys 9 Homes; Lava Inches Seaward

A seven-mile river of glowing hot lava from Kilauea Volcano had destroyed nine homes and severed a highway by late Thursday as it inched toward the ocean.

“The eruption is still going strong,” said Tom Wright, scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. “There is no change in our instrument readings.”

At its closest, the lava had moved to within 600 to 700 feet of the sea, said Mardie Lane, a park ranger at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Lava destroyed two of the homes Thursday, and seven were destroyed late Wednesday, park authorities said. No other homes were immediately threatened unless the flow changed course, they said.

Black-Crusted Lava

The last time lava from Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii, reached the sea was in 1974, several miles west of the current flow. The current eruption began in 1983.

The glowing flow, covered with a thin black crust of cooled lava, reached the highway Wednesday and its more than 2,000-degree temperature set the asphalt on fire.

The area sounded like a war zone with methane gas explosions caused by overheated organic material being destroyed by the lava, county Civil Defense officials said.

The lava was pouring from a vent on the volcano’s eastern flank, Wright said.

About 60 people were evacuated Wednesday from 17 homes in the Kapaahu Homestead area east of here before the lava reached the homes, police said.

Firefighter Injured

The only injury reported was to a firefighter who lost part of his finger while coupling hoses to spray water to cool the creeping molten rock, police said.

There was no estimate of damage to the mostly older homes.

Police set up roadblocks in the area to keep sightseers away.

Residents of the Royal Gardens subdivision west of here were stranded when the lava crossed the coastal Kalapana Highway. Their only access to neighboring towns on the other side of the flow was a long, circuitous route through Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

“We’ll have to let Pele do what she wants to do,” said Hawaii County Mayor Dante Carpenter, referring to the Hawaiians’ goddess of the volcano.

But county firefighters turned their hoses on the forward fingers of the flow in an effort to cool and harden the surface lava and divert it away from the homes. The effort succeeded in saving one home.