PAHOA, Hawaii (Reuters) - A growing river of molten rock flowing from a fissure at the foot of Kilauea Volcano is believed to have demolished scores of additional homes and filled in a small bay at the eastern tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, civil defense officials said on Tuesday. Janet Snyder, a spokeswoman for Hawaii County, said that officials believed that hundreds of homes in the Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland areas had been destroyed overnight, adding to a confirmed toll of 117 homes from Monday. 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. The molten lava on the island of Hawaii has destroyed what officials said may be hundreds of homes, including a vacation home of the island’s mayor, Harry Kim, as a spewing vent has sent a wide, slow-moving river of lava into a residential community and the sea beyond it on the island’s east side.
A lava flow destroys at least 130 homes in the Vacationland Hawaii and Kapoho Beach Lots neighborhoods. Officials reported Vacationland Hawaii to be completely destroyed, while nearby Kapoho Bay has been filled with lava.