Lava from Kilauea Volcano's Fissure 8 flows Saturday through the well-established channel to the ocean at Kapoho. Photp courtesy USGS

June 16 (UPI) -- Lava from the Kilauea Volcano has destroyed 467 homes and covered 5,914 acres, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Saturday.

Activity on Saturday included an explosive event at Halemaumau Crater that had the energy of a 5.3 magnitude earthquake, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.

As Fissure 8 in the lower East Rift Zone remains active, lava fountains are reaching 170 feet tall, leaving gas emissions high. Winds will to continue to bring vog to the central, southern and western parts of Hawaii Island, officials said.

Saturday's announcement comes with an alert to Hawaiians to remain vigilant about air quality conditions and for those with breathing problems to limit outdoor activities. The alert also said areas downwind of Kilauea should be prepared for ash.

An explosive event at the Kilauea summit on Friday produced an ash plume that rose to 10,000 feet and dispersed, the defense agency said.

Heavy vog is blanketing the interior and southern parts of the island, impacting Hilo and wrapping around to Kona through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.</s>Approximately 600 homes have been swallowed by lava flows from Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island since early last month, marking its most destructive eruption in modern times, Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said on Thursday. The latest estimate of property losses from Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, far surpasses the 215 structures consumed by lava during an earlier eruption cycle that began in 1983 and continued nearly nonstop over three decades. Kim said Kilauea, one of five volcanoes on the Big Island, formally known as the Island of Hawaii, has never destroyed so many homes before in such a short period of time.

The latest volcanic eruption, which entered its 36th day on Thursday, stands as the most destructive in the United States since at least the cataclysmic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state that reduced hundreds of square miles to wasteland, according to geologist Scott Rowland, a volcano specialist from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

A similar, extremely violent eruption from Fuego volcano in Guatemala this week killed more than 100 people as it ejected deadly super-heated “pyroclastic” flows of lava and ash through nearby towns.

The latest damage appraisal from Kilauea came moments after Governor David Ige, on a visit to Hawaii County Civil Defense headquarters in Hilo, the island’s biggest city, signed a memorandum of understanding furnishing $12 million in immediate state disaster relief to the island.

Ige and Kim also announced formation of a task force of federal, state and local officials to devise a recovery plan for communities devastated by the eruption, with an eye toward preventing such major property losses in the future. “Our responsibility is to try to work with the community to rebuild out of harm’s way,” Kim said.

County civil defense officials had a day earlier put the confirmed number of homes destroyed during the past month at 130, all of them in and around the Leilani Estates community, where lava-spouting fissures opened up on the volcano’s eastern flank on May 3. More recently a huge river of lava that has crept several miles across the landscape to the eastern tip of the island engulfed two entire seaside housing subdivisions – Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland.

Over the course of about three days, a rolling wall of molten rock measuring half-mile across and 10- to 15-feet tall buried hundreds of homes, while vaporizing a small freshwater lake and filling in an inlet called Kapoho Bay, extending about a mile out from what had been the shoreline.

Kim said Vacationland, a private development believed to comprise roughly 160 homes, was completely erased, and that at least 330 houses were devoured by lava at Kapoho Beach Lots. The rest were

The rest of the losses have occurred in the Leilani Estates area, where the toll of destruction has been steadily rising by the day. “So if you combine the three of them (Kapoho, Vacationland and Leilani), we’re talking about 600 homes,” he told reporters. “I’m talking about 600 families. Don’t forget the farmers, don’t forget the ranchers, don’t forget all the employees for them.”

An estimated 2,500 people have been displaced by evacuations across the island since the eruption began five weeks ago, spouting fountains of lava and high concentrations of toxic sulfur dioxide gas through about two dozen volcanic fissures at the foot of the volcano.

Plumes of volcanic ash belched into the air by periodic daily explosions from the crater at Kilauea’s summit have posed an additional nuisance and health hazard to nearby communities. So too have airborne volcanic glass fibers, called “Pele’s Hair,” wispy strands carried aloft by the wind from lava fountains and named for the volcanic goddess of Hawaiian myth.

Seaside residents and boaters also have been warned to avoid noxious clouds of laze – a term derived from the words “lava” and “haze” – formed when lava reacts with seawater to form a mix of acid fumes, steam and glass-like particles when it flows into the ocean.

Frequent earthquakes, mostly of relatively small magnitude but numbering in the thousands, have persisted throughout the eruption, adding to the jitters of residents living closest to the volcano. In addition to destroying homes and other structures, lava flows have knocked out telephone and power lines, causing widespread communication outages, and forced the shutdown of a geothermal energy plant that normally provides about a quarter of the island’s electricity.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>HONOLULU (AP) — Lava from the Kilauea volcano destroyed hundreds of homes in a mostly rural area on the Big Island of Hawaii overnight, a county spokeswoman said Tuesday. The destruction is the largest number of destroyed homes since the eruption began last month.

No injuries were reported in the area, which had previously been evacuated.

“We don’t have an estimate yet, but safe to say that hundreds of homes were lost in Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland last night,” said Janet Snyder, a spokeswoman for Hawaii County.

A morning overflight confirmed that lava completely filled Kapoho Bay, inundated most of Vacationland and covered all but the northern part of Kapoho Beach Lots, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.

Lava early Tuesday destroyed Big Island Mayor Harry Kim’s second home in Vacationland, Snyder said.

County Managing Director Wil Okabe said his own vacation home in Kapoho Beach Lots was also threatened. Okabe described the area as a mix of vacation rentals and year-round residences.

“For us it’s more of a vacation area, but for those who live there permanently, they’re trying to figure out where they’re going to be living,” he said.

“He was very depressed,” Okabe said of how Kim felt about losing his vacation home. Kim and Okabe live in Hilo, the county’s seat, which is more than an hour drive from the Kapoho area.

Thousands in the Puna area had to evacuate after lava fissures started opening in neighborhoods a month ago. Officials had issued mandatory orders for residents of Leilani Estates and those in Kapoho Beach and Vacationland to leave by last Friday or risk being trapped and unreachable by emergency crews.

Homes in Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland are on smaller lots and are closer together than in other parts of the Puna district. Okabe estimated there are several hundred homes in each of the two subdivisions.</s>The summit of Hawaii‘s Kilauea volcano erupted early on Wednesday and fissures on its eastern slope sent fountains of lava up to 50 metres high, as the volcano showed no signs of calming down after six weeks of intensified activity.

A steam explosion at the summit will likely shower communities near the volcano with ash, the Hawaii Civil Defense Agency said.

“The summit explosion produced an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4,” the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) said.

The volcano has produced hundreds of moderate earthquakes since it first began erupting on May 3, caused by magma draining from inside the volcano and moving underground.

The USGS released aerial footage of the continued eruption, showing lava reaching waters edge on Big Island.

The magma has been spouting out of fissures from the ground along Kilauea flank, causing mass evacuations from communities. The most active fissure now, called “Fissure 8,” continued to pour into the ocean at Kapoho Bay, producing a hydrochloric acid mist called “laze,” formed when lava enters seawater.

“Gas emissions from the fissure eruption and at the ocean entry continue to be very high,” the Civil Defense Agency said.

The Kilauea eruption, now in its 41st day, has destroyed more than 600 homes, spread lava over 2,000 acres of land and opened up at least 22 fissures in the ground, according to Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim.

It is the most destructive in the United States since the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington, which killed at least 57 people.

U.S. President Donald Trump has approved federal disaster aid for residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged because of the Kilauea volcano eruption.

Gov. David Ige said Trump approved the request for individual assistance on Thursday.

Ige said qualifying residents may receive help from the federal government for issues such as shelter, unemployment, trauma and legal matters.

Hawaii‘s eruption, however, has produced slow-moving lava that has destroyed hundreds of structures but allowed people to evacuate, in sharp contrast to Guatemala’s Fuego volcano that ejected fast pyroclastic flows, which buried villages in burning ash and killed at least 109 last week.</s>Kilauea’s volcano eruption on Hawaii's Big Island has destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

Rivers of molten rock spewed from volcanic fissures at the foot of Kilauea, which have engulfed roughly 600 homes.

This latest volcanic eruption also stands as the most destructive in the United States since at least the 1980 explosion of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, which reduced hundreds of square miles to wasteland.

The volcanic phenomena at Kilauea's summit has also triggered thousands of mostly small-scale earthquakes which have added to the jitters of residents living nearby, and damaged facilities at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.</s>Lava from the Kilauea volcano that flowed into Kapoho Bay has created nearly a mile of new land and officials with the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday the flow is still very active and there’s no way to know when the eruption will end or if more lava-spewing vents will open.

The fast-moving lava poured into the low-laying coastal Hawaii neighborhoods in just two days this week, destroying hundreds of homes. “Lava continues to enter the ocean along a broad front in Kapoho Bay and the Vacationland area and it continues to creep north of what remains of Kapoho Beach Lots,” said USGS geologist Janet Babb.

As the lava marched toward the bay, it vaporized Hawaii’s largest freshwater lake, which was hundreds of feet deep in some places. The new land in Kapoho Bay is now owned by the state, but the peninsula won’t look like the farmland that dominates that region of the Big Island anytime soon. Depending on climate, rainfall and other variables, new vegetation could start growing soon, but it would take much longer for the fertile land and lush rainforests to build back up.

“How soon vegetation comes back on a lava flow really depends on the type of lava it is, and how much rainfall there is in the area,” said Babb. “There are flows on the Kona side of the island that are much older than some flows on east Hawaii, they are much older but they have far less vegetation and that’s just a reflection of the difference in rainfall.”

A small ohia tree was observed by a National Park Service employee during of a tour of a two-year-old inactive flow in Kalapana last week. “Rainfall really makes a difference,” said Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane. “A lot of ferns will pop up first. So, it’s usually ohia and ferns that are the first pioneers of those new lava flows.”

But the land is still highly unpredictable, and once the lava cools and hardens it will leave behind a jagged, scorched landscape with razor-sharp shards of volcanic rock. Any new land masses that are formed by lava within the national park become federal land and any ocean entries outside the park becomes state land.

“A lot of the ocean entries are extraordinarily unstable,” Ferracane said. “The bench that was formed during 2016 and 2017 61G flow has already collapsed and fallen into the ocean, so nobody really owns that any longer.”

The lava, which has covered more than 5,000 acres (2023.47 hectares) in this latest eruption is not only expansive, but very thick. Scientists said that while the height of the lava is variable depending on the source and local topography, much of the area is covered in 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) of lava.

People that have private property in the affected areas will still own their land, though it will need to be reassessed once the lava stops flowing. There are homes still standing in several subdivisions that have been inundated by lava, but many homeowners are unable to get back to those properties because the lava has already cut them off.

There are no homes left in the Vacationland subdivision and neighboring Kapoho has only a few homes left standing. They too are cut off and inaccessible. Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said lava has destroyed more than 600 homes since early last month.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>(CNN) — Lava from the Kilauea volcano, which erupted more than a month ago, now covers 5,914 acres, or 9.24 square miles, according to the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency.

Lava has also destroyed 467 homes, the agency said. A disaster recovery center, located inside a high school gym, and two shelters are open to the public.

Fissure 8 in the lower east rift zone is still very active and continues to flow into the ocean at Kapoho, according to reports from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Lava flowing in to the ocean can create what’s known as “laze,” a mash-up of lava and haze that occurs when hot lava hits the ocean, sending hydrochloric acid and volcanic glass particles into the air.

Fissure 16 is oozing lava, the observatory said, and is being monitored closely. The National Weather Service reported heavy vog, or volcanic smog, blanketing the inner and southern parts of the island.

A 5.3-magnitude earthquake centered in the summit region of Kilauea hit the island of Hawaii on Friday afternoon, the Civil Defense officials said. It was not large enough to cause a tsunami. A small ash plume, caused by the Kilauea summit ash eruption, reached 9,000 to 10,000 feet high and affected surrounding areas.</s>US President Donald Trump on Thursday approved federal emergency housing aid and other relief for victims of the six-week-old Kilauea Volcano eruption on Hawaii's Big Island, where hundreds of homes have been destroyed, state officials said.

The approval came a day after Governor David Ige formally requested assistance for an estimated 2,800 residents who have lost their homes to lava flows or were forced from their dwellings under evacuation orders since Kilauea rumbled back to life on May 3.

Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim has said that rivers of molten rock spewed from volcanic fissures at the foot of Kilauea have engulfed roughly 600 homes. The governor's office put the number of residences destroyed at 455.

Either tally marks the greatest number of homes claimed over such a short period by Kilauea - or by any other volcano in Hawaii's modern history - far surpassing the 215 structures consumed by lava in an earlier eruption cycle that began in 1983 and continued nearly nonstop for three decades, experts say.

The latest volcanic eruption also stands as the most destructive in the United States since at least the cataclysmic 1980 explosion of Mount St. Helens in Washington state that reduced hundreds of square miles to wasteland.

The geographical footprint of Kilauea's current upheaval is much smaller, covering nearly 6,000 acres, or just over 9 square miles (2,400 hectares) of the Big Island in lava, an area roughly seven times Central Park in Manhattan.

No specific sum of money was sought by the governor for federal disaster aid, and no dollar figure was attached to the package Trump approved under the Individuals and Households Program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).</s>When Barton County removed the expense of funding the Barton County Extension last year, there were thoughts that the Barton County Commissioners would lower the mill levy to drop property taxes for residents. As the Extension Office formed their own taxing entity in a combined effort with Ellis County, Barton chose to use the savings to help balance the 2017 budget.

Barton County Administrator Phil Hathcock says with uncontrolled costs like health care and retirement contributions going up and the state’s mandated tax lid, it is a good thing the County did not lower the mill levy.

The “property tax lid” law requires cities and counties to seek voter approval before they can adopt a budget that increases the spending of property tax revenues beyond a five-year average rate of inflation.

Hathcock says the County has no say on how much the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) costs. Hathcock estimated the state is requiring the County to increase their KPERS contribution by $100,000 in 2019.

The 2018 mill levy for Barton County was 43.567 with the total mill levy requiring $11,228,064 in property tax.</s>HONOLULU: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (Jun 14) approved federal emergency housing aid and other relief for victims of the six-week-old Kilauea Volcano eruption on Hawaii's Big Island, where hundreds of homes have been destroyed, state officials said.

The approval came a day after Governor David Ige formally requested assistance for an estimated 2,800 residents who have lost their homes to lava flows or were forced from their dwellings under evacuation orders since Kilauea rumbled back to life on May 3.

Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim has said that rivers of molten rock spewed from volcanic fissures at the foot of Kilauea have engulfed roughly 600 homes. The governor's office put the number of residences destroyed at 455.

Either tally marks the greatest number of homes claimed over such a short period by Kilauea - or by any other volcano in Hawaii's modern history - far surpassing the 215 structures consumed by lava in an earlier eruption cycle that began in 1983 and continued nearly nonstop for three decades, experts say.

The latest volcanic eruption also stands as the most destructive in the United States since at least the cataclysmic 1980 explosion of Mount St. Helens in Washington state that reduced hundreds of square miles to wasteland.

The geographical footprint of Kilauea's current upheaval is much smaller, covering nearly 6,000 acres, or just over 9 square miles (2,400 hectares) of the Big Island in lava, an area roughly seven times Central Park in Manhattan.

No specific sum of money was sought by the governor for federal disaster aid, and no dollar figure was attached to the package Trump approved under the Individuals and Households Programme, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper reported this week that eligible homeowners and renters could get up to US$34,000 each.

The programme provides grants to displaced residents to secure temporary housing while their homes are repaired or rebuilt. Assistance can also be obtained for repair and replacement costs.

In addition to housing assistance, Trump approved relief from several other FEMA programs, including crisis counselling, unemployment benefits and legal aid.

Trump previously issued a major disaster declaration weeks ago authorizing money from FEMA public assistance grants for the County of Hawaii, the island's local governing authority.

Residents will be able to register for assistance at a disaster recovery centre that will open on Friday at the Kea‘au High School Gymnasium. The centre will be jointly operated by Hawaii County, the State of Hawaii and FEMA.

His expansion of FEMA assistance came as the Kilauea eruption entered its 43rd day on Thursday.

In addition to lava and toxic sulphur dioxide gas spewing from about two-dozen fissures on the eastern flank of the volcano, daily periodic explosions of ash from the crater at Kilauea's summit have created a nuisance and health hazard to communities downwind.

Volcanic smog, or vog, carried aloft by the winds has hampered air quality for parts of the island and been detected as far away as the western Pacific island of Guam.

The volcanic activity at Kilauea's summit has also triggered thousands of mostly small-scale earthquakes that have added to the jitters of residents living nearby and damaged facilities at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the island's biggest attraction. Most of the park remains closed.

A report from the governor accompanying his request for federal aid documented the larger toll taken on residents of the island's volcano-stricken Puna district, including disruption of power, communications and drinking water infrastructure.

It cited an uptick in reports of residents "experiencing acute mental health effects of fear, anxiety and stress" as the crisis drags on with no end in sight.

With about one-fifth of Puna's population displaced by the eruption, the disaster has created a "housing crisis in a rental market that was already severely constrained," the report said.

In other economic impacts, the report cited losses of nearly US$37 million in vacation rentals and US$14 million from agriculture, including half of the state's entire cut-flower industry and 80 per cent of its papaya crop.
The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency states that the eruption of lower Puna has destroyed 467 homes in total.