- #RECENT VOLCANO ERUPTION IN HAWAII SMILEY FACE TV#
- #RECENT VOLCANO ERUPTION IN HAWAII SMILEY FACE CRACK#
This is an exciting time on Kīlauea Volcano because there have been several summit eruptions following the 2018 summit collapse. After the December 2020-May 2021 Halemaʻumaʻu eruption ended, Kīlauea summit region continued to slowly inflate. Photo taken from the south rim of Halema‘uma‘u at 10:41 a.m.
The writer was a guest of Norwegian Cruise Line and toured with the assistance of Hawaii Tourism Oceaniaįor more travel advice and inspiration sign up to Escape’s newsletter and check us out on Facebook.A Koa‘e Kea (white-tailed tropicbird) flies above the erupting west vent within Halema‘uma‘u crater, at the summit of Kīlauea. “And even the geologists, even the experts were stunned … it was quite incredible.” I bet he toasted a few marshmallows, too. “We were able to watch this river for a four-month period,” he says. He was witnessing history Pele and Earth’s primordial forces at work remoulding the Big Island. Oldham never tires of flying over torrents of liquid amber, smoking and hissing as they poured into the sea. It’s as though a nuclear blast has extinguished all life. We trace the lava flows inland and the landscape turns increasingly desolate. We see road fragments and islands of green marooned in a sea of basalt, and rooftops where resilient residents of Kalapana - destroyed in 1990 - have rebuilt their homes right on top of the lava. At its peak, the lava gushed at a speed of almost 20km/h, covering an area of 22sq km and creating 350ha of new land.
“If people continue to want to live down slope from one of the world’s most active volcanoes, what do you think’s going to happen?”ĭuring four months of violent eruptions, Kilauea expelled 760 million cubic metres of lava (the equivalent of 320,000 Olympic swimming pools). “It’s not the first time homes were lost or villages were completely erased from the map,” pilot Greg Oldham explains through my headphones. We see what was once the village of Kapoho, now smothered in a red blanket that extends 800m into the sea, obliterating 8km of highway. On a 45-minute flight with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters we fly over a wasteland of hardened lava fields, the earth blistered black and steaming. The best way to appreciate the sheer scale of Kilauea is by air. The golf goes on as an ash plume rises from the Kilauea volcano in 2018. Sections of the park are cordoned off and we’re warned not to stray from the path authorities are still surveying the altered landscape and there are perilous rifts up to 1.2km deep, not to mention unstable hot spots that will relieve the careless tourist of a foot. This is where Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes, is said to reside.Įverywhere in the park there’s evidence of Pele’s handiwork - steam vents that make your face dewy, sulphur banks where volcanic gases are excreted, and needle-like glass fibres, known as Pele’s Hair, formed from flying magma caught on the wind. So too is the museum that clings to the precipice of the collapsed caldera, which a few months earlier was a roiling lava lake and now resembles a meteorite strike. When we arrive at the national park, which was closed for more than four months during the eruptions, work crews are still patching gaping cracks in the road and the observation area overlooking Halemaumau Crater is closed. Lava flow from Kilauea near Pahoa, Hawaii, in early 2019. THE HAWAII FLIGHT AUSSIES ARE OVERLOOKING
#RECENT VOLCANO ERUPTION IN HAWAII SMILEY FACE CRACK#
Yet, for four weeks, cruise ships stopped docking in Hilo, including the Pride of America, on which I am a passenger, and tourism - the island’s biggest industry - suffered a crippling blow (down 90 per cent locally, Berner estimates).īut if you’re anything like me, the prospect of witnessing an eruption - feeling the Earth grumble, crack and retch molten bile - is a tantalising reason to visit. “Less than 1 per cent of the island was affected,” he says, exasperated.
#RECENT VOLCANO ERUPTION IN HAWAII SMILEY FACE TV#
And don’t fall for the TV news hysteria that depicted the entire Big Island besieged by some kind of volcanic Armageddon, much to the chagrin of Berner and his tourism industry colleagues. If you’re looking for the quintessential emoji volcano - top blown off an erupting symmetrical cone, raining fire and brimstone upon all below it - this isn’t it. Kilauea is a shield volcano, meaning it has long, gentle slopes and typically erupts not at the summit, but from pressure cracks on its flanks, built up by magma plumes under the Earth’s crust. Lava fields on the southeast coast of Hawaii.
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