A month after lava first began gushing out of cracks near homes on Hawaii's Big Island, the eruption at Kilauea volcano showed no sign of ending Monday with lava burning through residential communities as it flowed toward the ocean. The USGS report compared the ongoing eruption to other major volcanic events in the area over the past two centuries and finds that the volume of lava flows surfaced since May has already exceeded the combined volume from major eruptions in 1840, 1955 and 1960. “Given this volume and the sustained withdrawal of magma from the summit reservoir without appreciable deformation in the lower East Rift Zone, it is most likely that the LERZ (lower East Rift Zone) eruption may continue for months to years,” the report said. The eruption of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano could last for months or years and threaten new communities on the Big Island, according to a report by U.S. government geologists. “So there’s a very large volume of magma there that can supply lava rates for quite some time.”

If the ongoing eruption maintains its current style of activity at a high eruption rate, the report said, then “it may take months to a year or two to wind down.”

So far, the current eruption has not lasted as long as the 1955 eruption — which was 88 days, including pauses — but it has erupted far more lava at a higher rate. Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno estimated that there are at least a dozen people who have not evacuated, but that they have no way of communicating with anyone remaining in Kapoho, since phone and power service is no longer working in the isolated area.
Geologists monitoring the eruption of Kīlauea warned it could continue to spout lava for a long time.