Lava erupting from Hawaii’s powerful Kilauea volcano has now destroyed at least 26 homes, more than double the previous figure, officials announced Sunday, citing grim findings from an aerial survey by the fire department.

Scientists reported lava spewing more than 200 feet into the air. More than 1,700 people have evacuated, and some said they may have to stay away from their homes for a long time.

Earlier in the day, officials had said the lava destroyed nine homes.

Big Island civil defense officials also said Sunday that two new fissures, or vents where lava has broken through the ground, have emerged in the Leilani Estates subdivision.

“There’s more magma in the system to be erupted. As long as that supply is there, the eruption will continue,” U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist Wendy Stovall said.

As many as 10 fissures have opened up since the eruption started late Thursday afternoon, scientists said, adding that one of those vents has gone dormant.

Among the people whose homes were destroyed: an elementary school teacher and single mother of two. The woman, Amber Makuakane, told The Associated Press her three-bedroom house was right across from a fissure that had opened Friday. She says there was some steam rising from all parts of the yard initially but everything looked fine.

She also said she knew the volcano’s risks, but wanted to stay close to her family. Her children’s ages are 6 and 4.

A fellow teacher started a fundraising page to help Makuakane and her family rebuild.

Some people who evacuated will be allowed to return to pick up pets, medicine and vital documents, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> Lava from one of the world's most active volcanoes has destroyed more than 20 homes so far in Hawaii.

It's spreading across streets after spewing hundreds of feet into the air - forcing evacuations.

More than 17-hundred people have left their homes - unsure about if and when they'll be able to return. </s> 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.

The latest estimates — up to 80 more structures than previously counted as destroyed by lava smothering two newly evacuated subdivisions — could bring the total number of homes and other buildings lost over the past month to nearly 200.

Such a tally would put property losses from the current upheaval of Kilauea, which entered its 34th day on Tuesday, on par with 215 structures destroyed by lava during all 35 years of the volcano’s last eruption cycle, which began in 1983.

On Monday, the Hawaii County Civil Defense agency was putting the confirmed number of buildings lost to the current eruption at 117, mostly residential properties. About 80 of those were destroyed in the Leilani Estates community, where lava-spouting fissures in the ground first opened on May 3 downhill from the volcano’s eastern flank.

Another three-dozen homes were confirmed destroyed this past weekend when a large lava stream creeping 6 miles (9.7 km) across the landscape reached the far eastern edge of the Big Island, pouring into the ocean at a place called Kapoho Bay.

On Tuesday, a civil defense official told Reuters that at least 60 to 80 more homes were believed to have been devoured as the lava flow, measuring about a half-mile (80-meter) wide and 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.6 meter) tall, inundated the adjacent subdivisions of Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland.

The official said aerial surveillance of the area showed only the northern portion of Kapoho Beach and the southernmost “sliver” of Vacationland — the latter consisting of only about a half-dozen homes — were left unscathed.

Vivian Mark, a resident of Hilo who owns a beachfront vacation rental in Vacationland and is president of the Vacationland Hawaii Community Association, said Vacationland consisted of 240 housing lots and nearly 90 farm lots, but she was unsure how many of those had properties built on them.

Video footage from a helicopter flying over the area showed two seaside homes engulfed in flames, as clouds of white steam and hydrochloric acid fumes billowed from the water where red-hot lava was pouring into the ocean.

Civil defense officials said Kapoho Bay itself had been filled in with lava that extended seven-tenths of a mile (1.1 km) from what had been the shoreline.

“What used to be the bay is now all lava bed, new land, almost a mile (1.6 km) out into the ocean,” the civil defense spokesman told Reuters.

Authorities began evacuating the greater Kapoho area last week and ushered most of the last remaining residents to safety early on Saturday, hours before the lava flow severed all road access to the region. Several holdouts were airlifted by helicopter on Sunday, leaving no more than a handful of people who refused to leave, officials said.

The lava inundating Kapoho is emanating from Fissure 8, the only volcanic vent that was still belching large volumes of molten rock from the ground as of Tuesday, officials said. </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> Lava from the Kilauea volcano has destroyed hundreds of homes in a mostly rural area on the Big Island of Hawaii, a county spokeswoman says.

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 flyover 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 US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.

Lava destroyed Big Island Mayor Harry Kim's second home in Vacationland, Ms Snyder said.

County managing director Wil Okabe said his own holiday home in Kapoho Beach Lots was also threatened.

Mr Okabe said the area was a mix of holiday 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.

Thousands in the eastern district of Puna had to evacuate after lava fissures started opening in neighbourhoods 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. </s> The texts and calls to John Tarson, a tour operator in Hawaii who has taken thousands of visitors to see lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano over the years, began soon after last week's spectacular eruptions.

There were expressions of concern for the residents on the island's eastern edge who were forced to flee their homes, and about his own safety. There were exclamations of fear and awe at the lava spreading across the land. And then, some version of the question: "Can we go watch?"

To those, Tarson, 37, had an easy response; Business was closed. "At this point our efforts are all going to be to help the community that is suffering losses."

The natural wonder that is the Kilauea volcano is the main attraction of Hawaii's Big Island, with nearly all of its 2 million annual visitors making a stop in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. But as the volcano and the surrounding area transformed into a natural disaster, leaving almost three dozen structures destroyed, residents, officials and tourists alike wrestled with its dual nature.

Twelve fissures have emerged, sending lava into the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens subdivisions, where about 1,800 people live. Last week, Hawaii County ordered the subdivisions evacuated. Thirty-five structures have been destroyed, according to the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency. No deaths or injuries have been reported.

The authorities began allowing residents of Leilani Estates to retrieve their belongings Sunday, while Lanipuna Gardens remained closed because of dangerous volcanic gases.

The island has been hit by hundreds of earthquakes in recent days, and more aftershocks were expected, officials said.

Heath Dalton, who lives in Leilani Estates and was evacuated Friday, returned to his home Sunday morning. He drove a truck and trailer, planning to pick up possessions that he had packed earlier. Instead, he found his home engulfed.

He called two neighbours to tell them their houses were gone. "I look at mine and I can see my house burning," said Dalton, who was unharmed. "At that point I called my wife and said, 'There's no reason for you to come; there's nothing to get.'" </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> × More Than 80 Homes Have Been Destroyed by Kilauea Volcano Eruption in Hawaii

More than 80 homes have been destroyed by the Kilauea volcano eruption in Hawaii in the four weeks since lava began flowing, Hawaii Civil Defense spokesman Talmadge Magno said Friday.

The number of homes swallowed by the lava flowing from fissures has jumped to at least 87, up the from the 77 reported destroyed Thursday.

The report of mounting damage followed a mandatory evacuation order issued Thursday night for a portion of the Leilani Estates subdivision in the midst of “vigorous lava eruptions” threatening homes, the Civil Defense said.

Leave — or get arrested

Because of the havoc and damage the volcano is causing, authorities gave residents two options: evacuate or get arrested.

Residents were advised to evacuate by Friday afternoon. Emergency responders have no plans to rescue anyone from the evacuated areas past the deadline, the agency said.

“They are being asked to leave. Period,” county spokeswoman Janet Snyder told reporters.

Those in Kapoho — including Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland — also were ordered out because of the risk of getting trapped by the lava.

Seven people were cited Saturday for loitering in a disaster zone, according to CNN affiliate KGMB-TV. The seven individuals will have to appear in court, Hawaii officials said.

Four weeks have passed since the first eruption rocked Hawaii’s Big Island and lava continues oozing from volcanic fissures, burning homes to the ground and turning into rivers of molten rock.

The US Geological Survey said the lava from the Kilauea volcano has covered an area of 5.5 square miles — four times as big as New York’s Central Park.

Fissure 8 remains the most active, the USGS says, sending “persistent fountains” of lava as high as 260 feet into the air. Lava lobes from Fissure 8 were advancing 100 yards an hour, the USGS said.

“This is the hottest lava we’ve seen during this eruption,” Wendy Stovall, a scientist with USGS, told CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now. “Lava can’t get hotter than where we are.”

Volcanic weather conditions

Besides the lava, there’s also the danger of “vog,” or volcanic smog. Vog is a haze created when sulfur dioxide gas and other volcanic pollutants mix with moisture and dust.

In addition to volcanic particles that can cause eye, skin and respiratory irritation, residents were warned to be on the lookout for sharp, thin strands of volcanic glass fibers known as “Pele’s hair,” a reference to the Hawaiian goddess of fire. The Civil Defense Agency warned it could cause injury if it got in residents’ eyes or was breathed in.

CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said the volcano is also creating its own weather. The USGS, posted a photo to Facebook from earlier this week that shows building pyrocumulus clouds over fissure 8.

“Hawaii Volcano Observatory Scientists are beginning to observe these ‘pyrocumulus’ clouds forming over the Leilani Estates fissure system,” the USGS stated.

Pyrocumulus clouds are rare mushroom-like cloud formations that can tower above lava and gases spattering from a volcano. They are often also referred to as “flammagenitus” or “fire clouds,” the USGS said in the post. </s> PAHOA, Hawaii (AP) — The number of homes destroyed by Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano jumped to 26 on Sunday as scientists reported lava spewing more than 200 feet into the air.

In revised figures, Hawaii County officials said another four unspecified structures were covered by lava.

Some of the more than 1,700 people who evacuated prepared for the possibility they may not return for quite some time.

Hawaii officials said the decimated homes were in the Leilani Estates subdivision, where molten rock, toxic gas and steam have been bursting through openings in the ground created by the volcano. Officials updated the number of lost homes after an aerial survey of the subdivision.

“That number could change,” Hawaii County spokeswoman Janet Snyder said. “This is heartbreaking.”

Amber Makuakane, 37, a teacher and single mother of two, said her three-bedroom house in Leilani Estates was destroyed by lava.

The dwelling was across from a fissure that opened Friday, when “there was some steam rising from all parts of the yard, but everything looked fine,” Makuakane said.

On Saturday, she received alerts from her security system that motion sensors throughout the house had been triggered. She later confirmed that lava had covered her property.

“They don’t really understand,” she said about her children. “My son keeps asking me, ‘Mommy when are we going to go home?'”

Makuakane grew up in the area and lived in her house for nine years. Her parents also live in Leilani Estates.

“The volcano and the lava — it’s always been a part of my life,” she said. “It’s devastating … but I’ve come to terms with it.”

Lava has spread around 387,500 square feet surrounding the most active fissure, though the rate of movement is slow. There was no indication when the lave might stop or how far it might spread.

“There’s more magma in the system to be erupted. As long as that supply is there, the eruption will continue,” U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist Wendy Stovall said.

Traditional Hawaiian beliefs say it depends on Pele, the volcano goddess who is said to reside in Kilauea.

“You have to ask Pele,” Steve Clapper said when asked whether he had any idea when he’d return to his Leilani Estates home.

Clapper had to put his ailing 88-year-old mother into a car and leave shortly after hearing an ominous rumbling behind the house. He believes he saw its roof still standing in photos of the area but can’t be sure. Still, the California native was sanguine as he assessed his situation.

“What can you do? You have no control over it,” Clapper said as he started his day at a nearby evacuation shelter. “Pele’s the boss, you know.”

Cherie McArthur wondered what would become of her macadamia nut farm in Lanipuna Gardens, another evacuated neighborhood near Leilani Estates. One of the year’s first harvests had been planned for this weekend.

“If we lose our farm, we don’t know where we’re going to go. You lose your income and you lose your home at the same time,” said McArthur, who’s had the farm for about 20 years. “All you can do is pray and hope and try to get all the information you can.”

About 240 people and 90 pets spent Saturday night at shelters, the American Red Cross said.

Officials let some residents return briefly Sunday to fetch pets, medicine and documents.

The number of lava-venting fissures in the neighborhood grew overnight from eight to as many as 10, Stovall said, though some have quieted at various points. Regardless, USGS scientists expect fissures to keep spewing.

The lava could eventually be channeled to one powerful vent while others go dormant, as has happened in some previous Hawaii eruptions, Stovall said.

Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has been erupting continuously since 1983. The USGS’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory issued a notice in mid-April that there were signs of pressure building in underground magma, and a new vent could form on the cone or along what’s known as the East Rift Zone. Leilani Estates sits along the zone .

The crater floor began to collapse Monday, triggering earthquakes and pushing lava into new underground chambers that carried it toward Leilani Estates and nearby communities. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake — Hawaii’s largest in more than 40 years — hit the area Friday.

It set Michael McGuire’s car rocking in his driveway, knocking things off his shelves and shattering glass in his cabinets in an area near Leilani Estates.

He hoped to check on his home Sunday. But he realized it was too soon to be sure when, or if, it would be safe from the moving lava.

“I’m somewhat fatalistic: if it happens, it happens,” he said. “And I’m enjoying life here, so you know, you put up with a lot of things here. This is one of them.”

Noah and Laura Dawn own a retreat center about 3 miles downhill from the most active vents They were clearing out items Sunday and relocating up the coast indefinitely.

“We’re just removing all things of value to us and precious things because I have the feeling it could get real – real, real fast,” Noah Dawn said.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
More than 80 homes have now been destroyed by the Kilauea eruption.