What happened
Hawaii’s Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, began erupting Monday in a remote area of Volcano National Park that had not seen volcanic activity in half a century.
Who said what
A major Kilauea eruption in 2018 destroyed hundreds of homes, but the volcano has since “gone away from a period of steady eruptions,” USGS geophysicist Michael Poland told The New York Times. These days it has “discrete, usually shortish eruptions happening in several different places.” The last eruption in the region of Monday’s event was in late 1974, and it “lasted only about 6 hours,” Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency officials said to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
“People just need to realize this is in one of the safest places it could have happened,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said. “Absolutely no property in danger.”
What next?
The USGS said the eruption, about a mile south of the Kilauea caldera, paused about 12 hours after it began, but “activity in this region remains dynamic and could change quickly.”