Hawaiian Volcano Sends Lava Oozing Toward Town, With No Telling When It Will End
An unusual fissure on the volcano's northeast side sends lava opposite the usual direction, toward homes and a highway.
Lava from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is oozing toward a main road. With the flow threatening to isolate about 8,500 people—many of whom rely on the highway to reach their jobs—everyone wants to know when the lava will halt its advance.
Geologists studying the situation have no answer, because there's no way to know how much lava will seep out.
Lava from Kilauea usually flows south, toward the ocean, so it was startling when on June 27 a newly opened fissure started sending lava in the opposite direction, toward the Kaohe Homesteads subdivision.
"It's sending flows in directions that haven't been threatened in a very long time," says Matthew Patrick, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on
