Kapoho Bay and Vactionland before lava
Steaming fissures first began to crack open and spread lava across Hawaii’s Leilani Estates neighborhood on May 3, 2018. Since then, more than 20 fissures have opened on Kilauea’s Lower East Rift Zone, though most of the lava flows have been small and short-lived.
Not so for fissure number 8. That crack in the Earth has been regularly generating large fountains of lava that soar tens to hundreds of feet into the air. It has produced a large, channelized lava flow that has acted like a river, eating through the landscape as it flows toward the sea.
Kapoho Bay and Vactionland covered in lava, June 2018
While the fissure 8 lava flow initially remained in relatively narrow channels, it began to widen significantly as it neared the coastline and passed over flatter land. It evaporated Hawaii’s largest lake in a matter of hours, and devastated the communities of Vacationland and Kapoho, destroying hundreds of homes.
Navigation Chart of the Puna Coast
Click on image for a full-sized view
The sea floor drops off dramatically to great depths
so it is unclear how far out the new lava delta might grow.
On June 3, 2018, lava from fissure 8 reached the ocean at Kapoho Bay on Hawaii’s southeast coast. When the Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI) on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite captured a natural-color image on June 7, the lava had completely filled in the bay and formed a new lava delta. For comparison, the Landsat 8 image shows the coastline on May 14.
Since May 3, 2018, Kilauea has erupted more than 110 million cubic meters of lava. That is enough to fill 45,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, cover Manhattan Island to a depth of 2 meters (7 feet), or fill 11 million dump trucks, according to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey. However, that is only about half of the volume erupted at nearby Mauna Loa in a major eruption in 1984.
By June 18 the lava had claimed 533 homes, covered 5,914 acres (more than 9 square miles). 20-story tall lava fountains created a lava river that was flowing freely over cascades (lava fall)at about 15 mph from the source creating a frightening stream of molten earth. The lava river slows to about 2 mph as it reaches the sea.
By June 18 the lava had claimed 533 homes, covered 5,914 acres (more than 9 square miles). 20-story tall lava fountains created a lava river that was flowing freely over cascades (lava fall)at about 15 mph from the source creating a frightening stream of molten earth. The lava river slows to about 2 mph as it reaches the sea.
Close up of Lava River (see video below)
Photo: John Kopono Carter
The new land at Kapoho Bay is quite dynamic, fragile, and dangerous. “Venturing too close to an ocean entry on land or the ocean exposes you to flying debris from sudden explosive interaction between lava and water,” USGS warns. Since lava deltas are built on unconsolidated fragments and sand, the loose material can abruptly collapse or quickly erode in the surf.
The plumes that form where lava meets seawater are also hazardous. Sometimes called “laze,” these white plumes of hydrochloric acid gas, steam, and tiny shards of volcanic glass can cause skin and eye irritation and breathing difficulties. When Sentinel-2 captured this image, the laze plume streamed west and mixed with clouds.
References and Further Reading
Discover (2018, June 11) Rocky Planet: Over 500 Homes Now Destroyed by the Continuing Kilauea Eruption. Accessed June 12, 2018.
Forbes (2018, June 6) Hawaii Volcano: Lava Flow Completely Fills The Beautiful Kapoho Bay. Accessed June 12, 2018.
In the Company of Volcanoes (2018, May 3) Communicating volcanoes: resources for media. Accessed June 12, 2018.
The New York Times (2018, June 9) 30 Billion Gallons of Hawaiian Lava, as Seen From the Ground and Space. Accessed June 12, 2018.
NASA Disasters Program Mount Kilauea Eruption, Hawaii 2018. Accessed June 12, 2018.
NASA Disasters Program Maps and Data for Kilauea. Accessed June 12, 2018.
NASA Earth Observatory Volcanic Activity at Kilauea.
Hawaii County Civil Defense Lava Flow Information. Accessed June 12, 2018.
Star Advertiser (2018, June 8) Lava claims nearly 500 homes in Lower Puna.Accessed June 12, 2018.
The Conversation (2018, June 5) From Kilauea to Fuego: three things you should know about volcano risk. Accessed June 12, 2018.
U.S. Geological Survey Kilauea. Accessed June 12, 2018.
These 1922 Topo Quads of the Puna coast have a contour interval of 50 feet. If you blow up the map to its original size (by clicking on it), you'll see that the coast drops off dramatically and to great depths, so it will take a lot of lava to create much new land along this part of the Big Island.
What a doctor saw in a Texas shelter for migrant children
The small shelter along the Texas border to Mexico held 60 beds and a little playground for children. Rooms were equipped with toys, books and crayons. To Colleen Kraft, this shelter looked, in many ways, like a friendly environment for children, a place where they could be happy.
But the first child who caught the prominent pediatrician’s attention during a recent visit was anything but happy. Inside a room dedicated to toddlers was a little girl no older than 2, screaming and pounding her fists on a mat. One woman tried to give her toys and books to calm her down, but even that shelter worker seemed frustrated, Kraft told The Washington Post, because as much as she wanted to console the little girl, she couldn’t touch, hold or pick her up to let her know everything would be all right. That was the rule, Kraft said she was told: They’re not allowed to touch the children.
“The really devastating thing was that we all knew what was going on with this child. We all knew what the problem was,” Kraft said. “She didn’t have her mother, and none of us can fix that.”
The girl had been taken from her mother the night before and brought to this shelter that had been redecorated for children under age 12, Kraft said staffers told her.
[Family separations could double, says Border Patrol chief in Rio Grande Valley]
Trump Will Not Allow Aid Workers to Touch Detained Children
'I hate it': Trump blames Democrats for separating immigrant children from parents. A blatant lie.
President Trump told reporters June 15 that he hates "to see separation of parents and children," but that "Democrats forced that law upon our nation." (AP)
The little girl is among the multitude of immigrant children who have been separated from their family as part of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, meaning any adult who crosses the border illegally will face criminal prosecution. That also means parents were taken to federal jails while their children were sent to shelters.
Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from their parents during six weeks in April and May, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said colleagues who were alarmed by what was going on at the border invited her to see for herself, so she visited a shelter run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
“We needed to see what was happening and tell the country and the world about it,” she said.
One thing immediately became clear to Kraft: Those who work at this shelter, whom she declined to name for privacy reasons, were doing what they could to make sure the children’s needs are met. The children were fed; they had beds, toys, a playground and people who change their diapers. But there are limits to what workers could do. Not only could they not pick up or touch the children; they could not get their parents for them.
“The really basic, foundational needs of having trust in adults as a young child was not being met. That contradicts everything we know that the kids need to build their health,” Kraft said.
[‘Where’s Mommy?’: A family fled death threats, only to face separation at the border.]
Such a situation could have long-term, devastating effects on young children, who are likely to develop what is called toxic stress in their brain once separated from caregivers or parents they trusted. It disrupts a child’s brain development and increases the levels of fight-or-flight hormones in their bodies, Kraft said. This kind of emotional trauma could eventually lead to health problems, such as heart disease and substance abuse disorders.
Kraft and her organization are not alone in this opinion.
“While not all of the children we are ripping from their parents will suffer the full consequences of toxic stress, many may,” child psychologist Megan Gunnar of the University of Minnesota told BuzzFeed News.
“The age of the child matters,” Gunnar said. Children under age 10 are of deep concern, she said. “Those under 5 should get us all running around with our hair on fire to get this practice stopped.”
Nearly 4,600 mental-health professionals and 90 organizations have joined a petition urging Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and several elected officials to stop the policy of separating children from their parents. The petition says:
These children are thrust into detention centers often without an advocate or an attorney and possibly even without the presence of any adult who can speak their language. We want you to imagine for a moment what this might be like for a child: to flee the place you have called your home because it is not safe to say and then embark on a dangerous journey to an unknown destination, only to be ripped apart from your sole sense of security with no understanding of what just happened to you or if you will ever see your family again. And that the only thing you have done to deserve this, is to do what children do: stay close to the adults in their lives for security.
[‘They just took them?’ Frantic parents separated from their kids fill courts on the border]
A 2-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12 in McAllen, Tex. (John Moore/Getty Images)
It further says: “To pretend that separated children do not grow up with the shrapnel of this traumatic experience embedded in their minds is to disregard everything we know about child development, the brain, and trauma.”
As of Thursday, 11,432 migrant children are in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, up from 9,000 at the beginning of May. These numbers include minors who arrived at the border without a relative and children separated from their parents.
The policy so far has pushed shelters to their capacity. Administration officials had started making preparations to hold immigrant children on military bases. On Thursday, the Trump administration said it will house children in tents in the desert outside El Paso
Though the policy has been enacted and touted by his own administration, Trump has avoided publicly owning it and, instead, blamed Democrats on Twitter for “forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda.”
Health and Human Services blames Congress, saying its inability to pass legislation on border security “created perverse and dangerous incentives for illegal border crossings and child smuggling.”
For Kraft, lost in the partisan wrangling and finger-pointing was the long-term impact on children.
“As partisan and as divisive as the whole topic of immigration is, we need to start with what’s right,” she said. “Can we start with just keeping parents and children together while we figure out some of the other details?”
“The kids need to come first,” she added. “America is better than this.”
Read more:
Trump cites as a negotiating tool his policy of separating immigrant children from their parents
Sessions cites Bible passage used to defend slavery in defense of separating immigrant families
U.S. to house migrant children in tents outside El Paso as government takes more into custody
It further says: “To pretend that separated children do not grow up with the shrapnel of this traumatic experience embedded in their minds is to disregard everything we know about child development, the brain, and trauma.”
As of Thursday, 11,432 migrant children are in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, up from 9,000 at the beginning of May. These numbers include minors who arrived at the border without a relative and children separated from their parents.
The policy so far has pushed shelters to their capacity. Administration officials had started making preparations to hold immigrant children on military bases. On Thursday, the Trump administration said it will house children in tents in the desert outside El Paso
Though the policy has been enacted and touted by his own administration, Trump has avoided publicly owning it and, instead, blamed Democrats on Twitter for “forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda.”
Health and Human Services blames Congress, saying its inability to pass legislation on border security “created perverse and dangerous incentives for illegal border crossings and child smuggling.”
For Kraft, lost in the partisan wrangling and finger-pointing was the long-term impact on children.
“As partisan and as divisive as the whole topic of immigration is, we need to start with what’s right,” she said. “Can we start with just keeping parents and children together while we figure out some of the other details?”
“The kids need to come first,” she added. “America is better than this.”
Read more:
Trump cites as a negotiating tool his policy of separating immigrant children from their parents
Sessions cites Bible passage used to defend slavery in defense of separating immigrant families
U.S. to house migrant children in tents outside El Paso as government takes more into custody