An ash plume from the Kilauea volcano’s summit crater on Hawaii’s Big Island has risen as high as 12,000ft above sea level, according to monitors.
Ash has been wafting continuously from a vent in the crater, Halemaumau, and drifting south west, causing ash fall and volcanic air pollution as far as 18 miles away, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.
Authorities have issued an ash fall advisory for the island’s southernmost district, and a “red” warning for pilots and air traffic controllers as the ash could disrupt flights.
Ormat Technologies, which owns a geothermal energy plant in the area, said there is a low risk of lava impacting the facility.
The plant, Puna Geothermal Venture, which provides about a quarter of daily energy demand on the Big Island, was shut down after Kilauea first erupted on May 3.
Elsewhere, authorities reported a new fissure opened in the Lanipuna Gardens area, bringing the number of cracks in the ground spitting out lava and toxic gas to nearly 20 since the eruption began.
Another fissure that opened up last weekend is sending molten rock crawling towards the ocean at about 20 yards per hour.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here