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Lava Flow In Hawaii Gains Speed, Triggers Methane Explosions

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-getting-hot-in-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes Officials say molten lava from a Hawaii volcano has been flowing steadily in an area where residents have been warned they might have to evacuate their homes. Dozens of residents in the flow path have been told to complete all necessary preparations by Tuesday for a possible evacuation. From the article: "Janet Babb, a geologist and spokeswoman for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said methane explosions also have been going off. She said decomposing vegetation produces methane gas that can travel subsurface beyond the lava front in different directions, accumulating in pockets that can ignite. She said it was a bit unnerving to hear all the blasts on Saturday."

64 comments

  1. WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Xenu just needs to drop some H-bombs in there and shut that joker down.

    1. Re: WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that burrito I ate is going to trigger a methane explosion. Wait, no, it's confirmed.

  2. What is a "handful" of people by TheCarp · · Score: -1

    The vast majority of residents contacted had identified places where they could go, with "less than a handful" saying they may need to go to a shelter, he said.

    Really? I mean, I can only hold one average adult "in hand" with a single hand....and even that is being rather generous about "in hand", I can at best grab a wrist, fore arm, ankle, or windpipe/jugular, maybe hair or a nose. However, any one of these takes up my entire single hand.

    Even if we assume the people are all babies, I can, at most, heft one of them in a single hand as well, and even that isn't the recommended proper way to carry a baby.

    So "less than a handful" would be 0 people.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    1. Re:What is a "handful" of people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A handful = 5. The count of your fingers.

    2. Re:What is a "handful" of people by slackoon · · Score: 1

      "Dozens of residents in the flow path have been told to complete all necessary preparations by Tuesday for a possible evacuation. The timeline could change, based on the flow rate."

      That's a big hand!!!!!

      Source

    3. Re: What is a "handful" of people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're talking about a few people.

    4. Re: What is a "handful" of people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never mind, you're talking to a few hands...

    5. Re:What is a "handful" of people by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      I think you're probably right, which helps with the disaster preparedness crowd. "Nope, less than a handful. That's zero beds we need set up somewhere. I really hope our estimate isn't too low."

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    6. Re:What is a "handful" of people by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Colloquially, when we talk about a "handful" of things that can't actually be carried in a hand, we're talking about five or fewer things (the number of things we can count with the fingers of one hand).

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    7. Re:What is a "handful" of people by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      lol um reread the quote I used, it is pretty clear the "less than a handful" is not potential evacuees, but the subset of them who have indicated that they do not already have accommodations to evacuate too.

      Kind of like, if my area of town was evacuated, I would head over to the house of a friend or relative nearby, or if the need arose, to family a few hours away. There are very few scenarios where I would actually need to find shelter for longer than it would take for me to make arrangements for my physical travel.

      OTOH I know people who don't have nearby family and whose friends would likely mostly be in the same boat as them.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    8. Re:What is a "handful" of people by tlambert · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure that means that's what left of them after they have been ashed by the volcano will easily fit in one hand...

  3. still a better god than JHV1 by Thud457 · · Score: 2

    Pele's doing just fine, thankyouvermuch.
    Her neighbors are currently having a bit of a hard time, though.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  4. DON'T FORGET... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    ... to practice biblically correct sex.

  5. Fucking morons live next to a volcano. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    These fucking assholes. Explosions. Methane. Lava. tragedy. Give me a fucking break. These assholes live on a fucking volcano. This isnt even fuckin news man.

    Slashfuck is Slashshit.

    Liberal assholes here too. Global warmunists/cult of the church of climatology, and liberal, and President Obola lovers.

    This place is a fucking joke.

  6. Molten lava? by pahles · · Score: 0

    so that is molten molten rock?

    --
    Sig?
    1. Re:Molten lava? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Lava refers to either molten rock...or....molten rock that has flowed, cooled and solidified. "Lava beds" are large areas of once-molten rock that are solidified.

    2. Re:Molten lava? by Cardoor · · Score: 1

      The La Traviata is my favorite italian restaurant.

    3. Re:Molten lava? by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      I used to wear Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    4. Re:Molten lava? by WheatGrass · · Score: 1

      Someone, please produce a remix of this. The Technology Chronicles - 'Pilotless drone’ caller: No apology By Ben Pimentel on February 20, 2007 10:10 AM http://blog.sfgate.com/techchr... Pilotless Droneplane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    5. Re:Molten lava? by GNious · · Score: 1

      you should go see The La Brea Tar Pit

  7. OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Sounds like a whole lotta nuthin goin on. A city of 10 million is in panic mode, and rightly so, with yet another subway-Ebola casuality, that WILL expontially rise, and here some mid-Pacific island, with a LONG-ACTIVE volanco, gets a headline.

    1. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by MikeMo · · Score: 2

      You'd care if it was in your neighborhood and your insurance company won't cover your house.

    2. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by cellocgw · · Score: 2

      SRSLY? You bought a house in [redacted] Hawaii and didn't get volcano insurance?

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    3. Re: OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except... there is no such thing as lava insurance, or any insurance for those in lava zone 1 (this flow is in lava zone 3 however)

    4. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by machineghost · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I care and I don't even have an uninsured house ... though to be fair my uncle and aunt do :-( Pahoa is so remote you can't even get cellphone coverage there, but it's a beautiful area (it's on the island's rainy side so everything is lush and green). Houses cost in the 100-200k range, and while that is pretty cheap it still sucks to see it all melt away.

    5. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      Pahoa is Native town... these people don't have the kind of money that most Hawaii immigrants do, nor the financial ability to move elsewhere on their island.

    6. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      FUCK YOU. You built it on a volcano. Dont come to me looking for a FUCKING HANDOUT, prick liberal fuck. Im not even done paying off the house and I need to pay into a fund to give you a freebie for building on the side of an active volcano? FUCK YOU.

    7. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rubbish. Cellphones work fine there. There's a cell tower right in the town. For now.

    8. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by mu51c10rd · · Score: 1

      It's not THAT remote (my cellphone worked as of end of last year there). We tourists tend to pass through Pahoa on the way down for the tours hiking across the lava fields or taking the boats out to the old lava egress points on the ocean. Need highway 130 for that...should this lava bisect the town, it is going to hurt the volcano tourism industry significantly Pahoa also is the last place for a pitstop or some food on the way south too.

    9. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Rei · · Score: 1

      Now who's laughing?

      --
      Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
    10. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Rei · · Score: 1

      What percent of the US's population do you think is in the risk of a major natural disaster of some kind - volcano, flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, landslide, avalanche, etc? This time the dice got rolled and it was their homes that came up snake eyes. It should be noted that the town was built before Pu'u 'O'o became a "thing". There were no signs back then that Pu'u 'O'o was even likely to become an active vent, let alone one that would erupt for over three decades.

      --
      Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
    11. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by elsuperjefe · · Score: 1

      I care and I don't even have an uninsured house ... though to be fair my uncle and aunt do :-( ...

      do you think it is too late to call up the insurance rep for a policy?

    12. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I bet you could buy a policy through some website that has automated approval. Hopefully those insurance companies have some brains at some point too.

    13. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by dbIII · · Score: 1

      So says the guy in San Francisco waiting for an earthquake, the midwest waiting for a tornado, or even as far north as New York waiting for a hurricane?

    14. Re:OOOOooo "dozens warned they MAY need to flee" by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      In most parts of the world, having a local volcano erupting is a major problem. In Hawaii, most of the eruptions are either confined to the volcano's crater or the upper slopes, meaning that most of the time it's just an unexpected tourist attraction. (I remember being at Pearl Harbor in '72; there was an eruption of Mauna Loa that caused a bright yellow fountain that could be seen at night from Honolulu, but all it resulted in was a dome inside the crater. Having a lava flow go far enough to threaten homes is quite rare now, and that very rarity is what makes it news. Yes, Ebola is frightening, and potentially more dangerous, but that doesn't make it what's happening in Hawaii less newsworthy.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
  8. Pictures? by jopsen · · Score: 3, Funny

    How can we have a story about lava without pictures? I'm not sure how this is supposed to scare me :)

    1. Re:Pictures? by Cardoor · · Score: 2

      it's ISIS lava!!

      Fixed.

    2. Re:Pictures? by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      Maybe the camera melted or got blown up in a methane explosion.

  9. needs rebranding by slashmydots · · Score: 2

    All the Hawaii PR department has to do is rebrand now. "Come see a real, genuine flaming hellscape. Don't settle for those fake Hollywood post-apocalyptic disaster landscapes. Come see the real thing!"

    1. Re:needs rebranding by machineghost · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No rebranding needed. The Big Island has never exactly been the key to Hawaii's tourism industry (most of the island, especially on the volcano side, doesn't even have sandy beaches.) Plus, just about everything tourist-y on that island already is lava-themed anyway. They've got a lava forest, lava tubes, steam vents powered by underground lava, the giant volcano itself ... heck they even had a highway that got overrun with lava and instead of fixing it they turned that in to a tourist attraction!

    2. Re:needs rebranding by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      All the Hawaii PR department has to do is rebrand now. "Come see a real, genuine flaming hellscape ..."

      I realize that you are trying to be funny, but the volcanoes have long been a major tourist attraction on the Big Island. Thousands visit Volcanoes National Park, there are helicopter tours, etc. I once went on one of the helicopter tours, and it was an amazing experience to look straight down into an actively erupting volcano.

    3. Re:needs rebranding by cusco · · Score: 1

      Fixing it? How the frack do you "fix" a highway that had the last five miles buried by multiple meters of molten rock? Walk for half an hour from the current end of the road and you'll see a "No Parking" sign sticking up a couple inches above the solid rock. When we were there a couple of years ago there was an active lava tube a few feet below the surface just a couple hundred meters further along.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    4. Re:needs rebranding by Rei · · Score: 2

      Meh.

      If you want a flaming hellscape, Kilauea is a little candle compared to Bárðarbunga in Iceland. Kilauea erupts a couple cubic meters per second. Bárðarbunga erupts a couple hundred. Kilauea's gas emissions barely show up on satellite images. Bárðarbunga's just last night caused levels so high in a town a hundred kilometers away that it went off the top of the safety scale (which they got from Hawaii ;) ). Bárðarbunga has already erupted more lava than of Mauna Loa's multi-year eruptions in modern history, in under two months, and is up to about 1/6th the volume emitted by Kilauea in the entire 31 years of its eruption, with no signs of stopping. And it's doing all of this through a dike dozens of kilometers long. The magma chamber itself may still actually go off, mind you. An area the size of Manhattan is currently dropping by about a foot per day into the caldera, and has been doing so for months, causing one in every five powerful earthquakes on Earth. The caldera has released the largest lava eruptions on Earth since the last Ice Age, as well as floods several times larger than all of Earth's major rivers combined.

      But nobody cares about Icelandic volcanoes unless they take out European air travel ;)

      --
      Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
    5. Re:needs rebranding by Lotana · · Score: 1

      Iceland is also cold. Contrast it with tropical Hawaii full of sunbathing eye candy :-)

      Also, although "Kilauea" is hard to say, I don't even know how to read "BÃrÃarbunga". How do you pronounce the 'Ã' character?

    6. Re:needs rebranding by Lotana · · Score: 1

      Damn you Slashdot for butchering my question after posting! Copy-paste looked fine on preview!

      Rei: How did you manage to post the unicode in the first place successfully?

    7. Re:needs rebranding by Rei · · Score: 1

      I just typed it. But Slashdot simply "disappears" thorn characters, which is annoying.

      Bárðarbunga is full of eye candy. I can point to abundant examples including no shortage of videos on Youtube / Vimeo.

      As for pronunciation: Á is said "ow". BOWR-dthar-BOON-ka. The R is an alveolar tap or trill. If that's too hard for you, you can also call it Holuhraun (HOLE-ih-HROYN), Nornahraun (NORDN-uh-HROYN), THorbjargarhraun (THOR-Byardg-ar-HROYN), or a bunch of other names (the TH should really be a thorn, but again, Slashdot silently eats thorns). Among the many proposals for names was Holuhraunshraunshraunshraun, which was suggested because it would be fun watching foreigners try to pronounce it ;) It was never actually a serious contender, but I wrote an article poking fun at the concept on Uncyclopedia at one point ;)

      --
      Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
    8. Re:needs rebranding by Rei · · Score: 1

      Oh, and for the record, lava and snow are IMHO a beautiful reaction. :) Fire and ice, baby!

      --
      Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
    9. Re:needs rebranding by Lotana · · Score: 1

      Thank you.

  10. Comparatively speaking, lava moves slowly. by radwarrior · · Score: 2

    If I lived in an area susceptible to volcanic activity, I'd have a plan in place to bug out in the event of an event. Compared to most natural disasters lava moves slowly and for the most part, scientists are able to accurately predict eruption risk ahead of time. I wouldn't wait until told to leave.

    I live in an area with a wildfire risk, and in fact last summer this area lost over 500 homes to the, "Black Forest Fire". My place was evacuated but didn't suffer any loss. Wildfires move quite a bit faster than a lava flow.

  11. A crappy news story? by pat_trick · · Score: 1

    Why not just link directly to the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory website? http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/multimedia/index.php?newSearch=true&display=custom&volcano=1&resultsPerPage=20

  12. Pictures? by pat_trick · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/multimedia/index.php?newSearch=true&display=custom&volcano=1&resultsPerPage=20

    I'm surprised the original post links to a news story from a Seattle newspaper instead of the actual USGS website.

  13. Methane increase? by Rinikusu · · Score: 3, Funny

    What are they feeding the volcano?

    "We said VIRGINS, not VEGANS."

    --
    If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
  14. Great level of comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's nice to see the comment level on /. being about equal to the comments on cnn.com articles. Way to go people.

  15. SURPRISE! by YoungManKlaus · · Score: 1

    people living next to an active volcano have to evacuate here and there... would have never guessed that.

    1. Re:SURPRISE! by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      the surprise is that they built a town there in the first place. now we're supposed to spend our tax dollars on this *emergency*

    2. Re:SURPRISE! by NoKaOi · · Score: 1

      the surprise is that they built a town there in the first place. now we're supposed to spend our tax dollars on this *emergency*

      First off, lava hasn't flowed there since humans have lived there (at least thousands of years), but we shouldn't spend tax dollars on disaster assistance there? What about Miami, where hurricanes hit regularly, or areas of CA where huge earthquakes hit regularly? What about Portland, where a volcano erupted a few decades ago? Should we not spend tax dollars for disaster relief those places? And I suppose if a tsunami hits any coastal city or town that we shouldn't spend tax dollars helping them out?

    3. Re:SURPRISE! by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Lava hasn't flowed there since humans have lived

      Wrong.

      That volcano erupted in 1823, and the current eruption started in 1983, 31 years ago. Research before you spew bullshit, no excuse for those residents living there.

  16. Queen of Wands by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 1

    You know, there was a recent book by John Ringo that blamed the noise of weapons being discharged while fighting an incursion of Old Ones on methane gas explosions. You don't suppose... ?

    1. Re:Queen of Wands by modi123 · · Score: 1

      Is that a good book line? It sounds like it is in a similar vein as say the Dresden Files, the Laundry Files, or the Sandman Slim series. Dealing with the other worldly that the regular folk don't see.

  17. You can't *get* insurance in that district by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Most insurers won't write volcano and earthquake damage policies on some districts on the Big Island, Puna being one of them. So if Pele comes for your house, you're out of luck. And not only that - once your property is covered with lava you no longer own it - the title reverts back to the State. Not that anyone really cares that much - it's very difficult to rebuild on thick sheet of solid rock and the people who live in those areas usually have few resources anyway.

  18. Ban high capacity volcanos by gelfling · · Score: 1

    And assault lava.

  19. My wife was out there the other night by XenoBrain · · Score: 2

    My wife was out there Saturday night as a county volunteer with a pass to go into the restricted area. Her group walked right up to the flow on Ala'lli next to the transfer station (she's got some amazing videos on her phone, I'll ask her to upload them to Youtube later).

    She was the first to smell a sudden burst of methane, mentioning it the leader of the group, he shouted "we need to get out of here, now!" An explosion followed mere seconds after they has cleared.

    I cannot tell you how shaken I was to hear that story when she got home.

    1. Re:My wife was out there the other night by Lotana · · Score: 1

      She was the first to smell a sudden burst of methane

      Not to doubt your story, but how did she smell the methane? Methane is an odorless gas. This is why additional additives are included in the household gas for safety.

    2. Re: My wife was out there the other night by XenoBrain · · Score: 1

      Technically correct, it was identified as a sudden "strange" smell as there are other gasses in those pockets, thankfully it was enough of a tip off. She's asked permission (because it was taken in a restricted area) to let me post her videos to YouTube, we actually have some of this on (dark) cell phone video. Quite cool, and very dangerous!