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High Alert: Hawaii Volcano's toll nears 600 homes destroyed by lava; no end in sight
US Military News TV
The
number of homes and structures destroyed by lava on Hawaii’s Big
Island has jumped to nearly 600 -- making the Kilauea eruption the
most catastrophic event in modern state history, Hawaii County Mayor
Harry Kim said Thursday.
Kim,
who lost his own home to the devastating magma march that began in
May, has been pushing for more funding to help thousands of displaced
residents.
That
help came Thursday after Hawaii Gov. David Ige signed a memorandum of
understanding that freed up $12 million in immediate disaster relief
to the island. The money covers overtime pay for police, fire, public
works and civil defense personnel. It also provides funds for
equipment needed for evacuations and rebuilding.
“This
is an ongoing emergency and we’re in the early stages of damage
assessment, but we do know that costs for overtime, equipment and
materials are mounting,” Ige said. “This funding will help the
county continue to protect the health, safety and welfare of area
residents.”
Kim,
who had previously said it would take a minimum of $5 million per
mile to repair roads ravaged by Kilauea, said the $12 million will
help Hawaii County “focus on the critical tasks of making life
better for our people affected by the eruption.”
Ige
and Kim also announced the formation of a federal, state and local
task force that would develop a recovery plan for the hardest-hit
communities.
“Our
responsibility is to try to work with the community to rebuild out of
harm’s way,” Kim said.
Thousands
of residents have been left shell-shocked by the devastation that’s
been pounding the island. Most recently, a huge river of lava has
engulfed two entire seaside subdivisions – Vacationland and Kapoho
Beach Lots. That’s on top of the losses at Leilani Estates, one of
the first areas to feel the destructive power of Kilauea.
“So
if you combine the three of them, we’re talking about 600 homes,”
Kim said, adding that the number doesn’t account for the farmers,
ranchers and their employees forced off their land and out of work.
Scientists
with the U.S. Geological Survey say they don’t know when the
volcanic activity will stop.
Late
Thursday, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported that fissure 8
“is very active and producing a large channelized flow that has
filled in Kapoho Bay.”
HVO
said the lava delta is 1.2 miles wide and added that “ocean entry
is sending a large laze plume into the air along the coastline.”
As
of early Friday 24 separate fissures covered nearly 8 square miles of
land in lava. The fountain of lava at fissure 8 has reached as high
as 250 feet in the air.
If
that wasn’t enough, residents have had to deal with more than 9,000
earthquakes that have rattled the Big Island since May 3. The
largest, a magnitude 6.9, produced an ash plume that was 30,000 feet
high.
Earth In Travail: Hawaii Hammered By Over 12,000 Earthquakes In The Last 30 Days
8
June, 2018
We
haven’t seen anything like this since Hawaii first became a state
back in 1959.
Kilauea began erupting on May 3rd, and it hasn’t stopped rumbling
yet. In fact, authorities are telling us that Hawaii
has been struck by “over
12,000 earthquakes” during
the last 30 days.
That
is an extraordinary amount of shaking, and many are now becoming
concerned that fundamental physical changes are happening to the
islands. As one USGS official has noted, we have never seen
earthquakes happen on the Big Island with this sort of frequency ever
before…
While most of the earthquakes have been relatively mild at magnitude 2 or 3, the largest earthquake was a massive 6.9 magnitude tremor on May 4, along with a 5.5 magnitude quake on June 4.Brian Shiro, a supervisory geophysicist at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said the island was witnessing the highest rate of quakes ever measured at the summit.On Wednesday, the biggest quake was a massive 5.6 magnitude earthquake that accompanied an eruption that shot rock and ash 10,000 feet into the sky. The following comes from the Washington Post…A magnitude 5.6 earthquake has struck the summit of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano summit, sending a plume of ash and rock about 10,000 feet into the sky.Hawaii County officials said the Wednesday eruption could cause ash to fall over some populated areas, including the towns of Volcano and Pahala.The temblor came just hours after U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall said another eruption was imminent.Meanwhile, the lava just keeps flowing. There is nothing that authorities can do to redirect or stop the rivers of lava that are coming from the volcano. All they can do is stop and watch the inevitable destruction.
Over the past few days, lava from the volcano has destroyed hundreds more homes and has completely filled in Kapoho Bay…On Sunday, the flow crept toward Kapoho Bay, a roughly 1,000-foot-wide ocean retreat. By Tuesday, the lava flow had completely engulfed the bay and surrounding neighborhoods.“Kapoho Bay is gone. Wiped out. Completely filled in with lava,” wrote Hawaii News Now. The outlet reported thathundreds of homes have been destroyed, including the second home of the Big Island’s mayor. Official counts peg the loss at about 200 structures demolished by the volcano since May, according to Reuters, though they will undoubtedly rise.You can view aerial images of the devastation right here. Needless to say, many of those that once had oceanfront properties along Kapoho Bay no longer do so.
But there is some potentially promising news. A rainbow was spotted directly over Kilauea, and some are taking that as a good sign.We shall see.
At the same time, the people of Guatemala are calling the latest eruption of the Fuego volcano “one of the biggest in 500 years”. A colossal avalanche of super-heated mud, rock and ash as hot as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit caught multitudes of local residents completely off guard. And the volcanic gases coming from the volcano alone were capable of causing rapid asphyxiation. You can see footage of the immense devastation here, and one official is telling the media that they are finding some bodies “totally buried, like you saw in Pompeii”…Otto Mazariegos, president of the Association of Municipal and Departmental Firefighters, said that bodies had been buried on inaccessible sites on the volcano’s south side, which overlooks the city of Antigua.“We saw bodies totally, totally buried, like you saw in Pompeii,” he said, according to The New York Times.There was another huge explosion that followed the initial eruption of the volcano, and at this point the total death toll has reached “at least 99”. The following comes from NPR…The death toll from Guatemala’s Fuego volcano rose to at least 99 on Wednesday, with many people still missing, after two strong explosions that scattered ash over a wide area and displaced thousands of residents from their homes.The scenes of devastation were accompanied by heartbreaking stories of entire families devastated by the disaster — the biggest eruption from the mountain in four decades.Sadly, the death toll will probably end up being much higher.Entire families were killed instantly by the mud, ash and rock, and many of the bodies may never be found.
This is Jose. On Sunday, he left his town of El Rodeo #Guatemala said goodbye to his Mother and never saw her again. He lost 9 family members in Sunday’s #VolcanDeFuego eruption including his parents and continues to search for their bodies 3 days later @NBCLatino
The
saddest story that I have come across so far is from a woman named
Lilian Hernandez. She told reporters that she is missing a total
of 36
family members…
Lilian Hernandez wept as she spoke the names of aunts, uncles, cousins, her grandmother and two great-grandchildren — 36 family members in all — missing and presumed dead in the explosion of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire.
“My cousins Ingrid, Yomira, Paola, Jennifer, Michael, Andrea and Silvia, who was just 2-years-old,” the distraught woman said — a litany that brought into sharp relief the scope of a disaster for which the final death toll is far from clear.
Could
you imagine losing 36 members of your family on a single day?
I
couldn’t.
As
I have written about so
many times before,
something is happening to our planet. Large earthquakes and major
volcanic eruptions are happening with increasing frequency, and this
could have dramatic implications for our immediate future.
Despite
all of our advanced technology, we are very much at the mercy of
these enormous natural disasters, and our best and brightest minds
might want to start looking into why our planet is suddenly becoming
increasingly unstable.
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