Tag Archives: Hawaii

Mauna Loa Volcano alert level raised after Eruption

Volcano Erupting

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Volcano Begins Eruption, Alert Level Raised
  • An eruption began in the summit caldera of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano
  • “At this time, lava flows are contained within the summit area and are not threatening downslope communities,” the notification said.
  • However, the notification warned, based on previous events that the early eruption stages of this volcano can be very dynamic and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly.
  • The volcano alert level was upgraded from an “advisory” to a “warning.”
  • Over a dozen earthquakes of more than 2.5 magnitude struck the region in the last two hours, according to the USGS, with one measuring 4.2 in magnitude.

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More Earthquakes rattle Hawaii’s largest Volcano, Mauna Loa

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven

Important Takeaways:

  • Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano: Earthquakes rumble, sending warning signs of possible eruption
  • The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said Wednesday that Mauna Loa continues to be in a state of heightened unrest on the Big Island.
  • The observatory detected 13 small-magnitude quakes in regions historically seismically active during periods of unrest on the volcano.
  • The current unrest — also indicated by inflation of the summit — is most likely being driven by renewed input of magma 2 to 5 miles beneath the summit.
  • Since its first well-documented eruption in 1843, the volcano has erupted 33 times, with its last eruption in 1984.
  • Officials are warning residents to be prepared in case it erupts soon.

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Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Volcano is rumbling, Civil Defense Agency warning not to panic but be prepared

  • Hawaii’s Big Island gets warning as huge volcano rumbles (Hawaii’s Muana Loa Volcano is rumbling the Civil Defense Agency warning not to panic but be prepared)
  • Hawaii’s civil defense agency is holding meetings across the island to educate residents about how to prepare for a possible emergency. They recommend having a ″go″ bag with food, identifying a place to stay once they leave home and making a plan for reuniting with family members.
  • “Not to panic everybody, but they have to be aware of that you live on the slopes of Mauna Loa. There’s a potential for some kind of lava disaster”
  • Mauna Loa, rising 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above sea level, is the much larger neighbor to Kilauea volcano, which erupted in a residential neighborhood and destroyed 700 homes in 2018.
  • Mauna Loa has been in a state of “heightened unrest” since the middle of last month when the number of summit earthquakes jumped from 10 to 20 per day to 40 to 50 per day.
  • Scientists believe more earthquakes are occurring because more magma is flowing into Mauna Loa’s summit reservoir system from the hot spot under the earth’s surface that feeds molten rock to Hawaii’s volcanoes.

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Remnants of Hurricane Darby sends historic surf to the Big Island of Hawaii

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Watch: Colossal waves crash over 2-story condo in Hawaii as Hurricane Darby remnants pass
  • Oceanfront buildings along Keauhou-Kona took the brunt of “historic” surf conditions
  • Swells were forecast to reach as high as 20 feet along the southern coast of Hawaii Island.
  • The waves damaged several buildings and forced road closures.
  • Darby had at one point reached major hurricane status with peak winds of 140 mph – rating a Category 4
  • Darby fizzled as it tracked a few hundred miles south of the Big Island. Still, the once-powerful storms churned heavy surf that eventually made its way to the Big Island.

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Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts for first time in nearly a year

(Reuters) -Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, in its first eruption in nearly a year, was filling the crater at its summit with hot red lava and clouding the skies with volcanic smog on Thursday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The latest eruption of Hawaii’s youngest and most active volcano began on Wednesday afternoon.

While the lava presented no immediate threat to populated areas, residents who live downwind of Kīlauea were warned of possible exposure to sulfur dioxide and other volcanic gases that can irritate the respiratory system.

The eruption was taking place within the confines of Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park, which remained open to visitors who wished to observe the lava’s glow and the pluming smoke from a safe distance.

Kīlauea’s last eruption took place in December 2020, when a water-filled lake that had formed at the crater evaporated, replaced by a lava lake.

Two years before that, a string of earthquakes and a major eruption led to the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses as lava flowed down to the ocean over a period of several months, hardening into new land.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mark Porter)

Boeing 737 cargo plane makes emergency water landing off Hawaii

By David Shepardson and Ankit Ajmera

(Reuters) -A decades-old Boeing Co 737-200 cargo airplane with two people on board made an emergency nighttime landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, early on Friday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said.

The FAA said both crew members were rescued, citing preliminary information.

“The pilots had reported engine trouble and were attempting to return to Honolulu when they were forced to land the aircraft in the water,” the FAA said in a statement.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate.

Transair Flight 810 departed Honolulu at 1:33 a.m. local time bound for Maui’s Kahului airport but quickly turned back toward Honolulu, according to aviation data from FlightAware.com.

Shortly after, the Coast Guard responded to reports of the downed plane south of the island of Oahu with two people on board. Around 2:30 a.m., a Coast Guard helicopter located the debris field and found one of the crew members clinging to the plane’s tail. That person was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital.

The other survivor was spotted on top of some floating packages and was picked up by a Honolulu Fire Department rescue boat for transport to shore, according to a spokesperson from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Both were being evaluated by medical personnel and their current condition was unknown.

The crew knew they were in trouble.

“We’ve lost number one engine,” one of the pilots told Honolulu air traffic control in a recording posted on LiveATC, an audio streaming site that broadcasts air traffic control communications.

“We are going to need the fire department … We’re going to lose the other engine, too. It’s running very hot.”

Boeing said it was closely monitoring the situation and was in contact with the NTSB. The airplane was built by Boeing in 1975, according to FAA records. The plane was first delivered to Pacific Western Airlines and joined Transair’s fleet in 2014, according to Flightradar24.com.

The plane was equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines. Pratt & Whitney said it was supporting the NTSB’s investigation.

Rhoades Aviation Inc does business as Transair, which is one of Hawaii’s largest air cargo carriers and has been in business since 1982. It has a fleet of five Boeing 737s that fly daily to all major Hawaiian island destinations, according to its website.

Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc, the insurance broker for Boeing, declined to comment.

Shares of Boeing were trading slightly lower on Friday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

Boeing’s 737 MAX was cleared to fly by regulators late last year after a 20-month grounding following two accidents that killed hundreds of people.

The 737 in Friday’s incident was an older generation than the MAX.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Truro, Mass., and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis)

Kilauea volcano erupts on Hawaii’s Big Island

(Reuters) – The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted on Sunday night, according to an advisory from the United States Geological Survey, followed by an earthquake that struck at the volcano’s south flank.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) recorded an earthquake of magnitude 4.4 located beneath Kīlauea Volcano’s south flank at 10:36 pm local time, according to the advisory.

The eruption was reported at the Halemaumau Crater of the Kilauea Volcano, the Hawaii county Civil Defense Agency said in a tweet early on Monday, requesting residents to stay indoors.

“Trade winds will push any embedded ash toward the Southwest. Fallout is likely in the Kau District in Wood Valley, Pahala, Naalehu and Ocean View,” the tweet added.

The eruption started with multiple fissures opening on the walls of Halemaumau crater, USGS said.

A picture from the USGS showed Kilauea’s summit illuminated by the hot lava with a plume of steam and gas bursting out of the volcano.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair and Derek Francis in Bengaluru, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

‘Secret’ life of sharks: Study reveals their surprising social networks

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sharks have more complex social lives than previously known, as shown by a study finding that gray reef sharks in the Pacific Ocean cultivate surprising social networks with one another and develop bonds that can endure for years.

The research focused on the social behavior of 41 reef sharks around the Palmyra Atoll, about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southwest of Hawaii, using acoustic transmitters to track them and camera tags to gain greater clarity into their interactions.

Far from being solitary creatures, the sharks formed social communities that remained rather stable over time, with some of the same individuals remaining together during the four years of the study.

The researchers documented a daily pattern, with sharks spending mornings together in groups of sometimes close to 20 individuals in the same part of the reef, dispersing throughout the day and into the night, and reconvening the next morning.

“Sharks are incredible animals and still quite misunderstood,” said Florida International University marine biologist Yannis Papastamatiou, lead author of the research published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

“I like to talk about their ‘secret social lives’ not because they want it to be a secret, but because only recently have we developed the tools to start seeing and understanding their social lives,” Papastamatiou added. “Not all sharks are social and some are likely solitary.”

The reef shark is medium-sized, reaching about 6 feet (2 meters) long. Its sociality bore similarities in terms of stability over time to certain birds and mammals but differed in that it did not involve nesting, mating, making vocalizations or friendly interactions.

The researchers suspect the sharks hang out together because it may help ensure that the various individuals find prey.

“For some time we have known that sharks are capable of recognizing particular group mates and having social preferences,” said marine biologist and study co-author David Jacoby of the Institute of Zoology in London.

“Our study reveals for the first time that they are actually capable of maintaining social partners for multiple years. Further we offer a possible mechanism for such long-term social structure – namely that social groups likely operate as information centers from which individuals can follow one another to offshore feeding areas.”

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

15 U.S. states to jointly work to advance electric heavy-duty trucks

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday unveiled a joint memorandum of understanding aimed at boosting the market for electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and phasing out diesel-powered trucks by 2050.

The announcement comes weeks after the California Air Resources Board approved a groundbreaking policy to require manufacturers to sell a rising number of zero-emission vehicles, starting in 2024 and to electrify nearly all larger trucks by 2045.

The 14 states said the voluntary initiative is aimed at boosting the number of electric large pickup trucks and vans, delivery trucks, box trucks, school and transit buses, and long-haul delivery trucks, with the goal of ensuring all new medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales be zero emission vehicles (ZEV) by 2050 with a target of 30% ZEV sales by 2030.

The states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Vermont.

The states committed to developing a plan within six months to identify barriers and propose solutions to support widespread electrification, including potential financial incentives and ways to boost EV infrastructure.

Trucks and buses represent 4% of U.S. vehicles, but account for nearly 25% of greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

California’s mandate will put an estimated 300,000 zero-emission trucks on the road by 2035. California’s planned rules will initially require 5%-9% ZEVs based on class, rising to 30%-50% by 2030 and nearly all by 2045.

The push comes as a rising number of companies – including Rivian, Tesla Inc., Nikola Corp., and General Motors work to introduce zero emission trucks.

Major businesses like Amazon.com, UPS and Walmart have also said they are ramping up purchases of electric delivery trucks.

California later plans to adopt new limits on nitrogen oxide emissions, one of the major precursors of smog, as well as require large fleet owners to buy some ZEVs.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Hogue)

U.S. tops 3 million known infections as coronavirus surges

By Callaghan O’Hare and Lisa Shumaker

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. coronavirus outbreak crossed a grim milestone of over 3 million confirmed cases on Tuesday as more states reported record numbers of new infections, and Florida faced an impending shortage of intensive care unit hospital beds.

Authorities have reported alarming upswings of daily caseloads in roughly two dozen states over the past two weeks, a sign that efforts to control transmission of the novel coronavirus have failed in large swaths of the country.

California, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas on Tuesday shattered their previous daily record highs for new cases. The biggest jumps occurred in Texas and California, the two largest U.S. states, with more than 10,000 each. About 24 states have reported disturbingly high infection rates as a percentage of diagnostic tests conducted over the past week.

In Texas alone, the number of hospitalized patients more than doubled in just two weeks.

The trend has driven many more Americans to seek out COVID-19 screenings. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday it was adding short-term “surge” testing sites in three metropolitan areas in Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

In Houston, a line of more than 200 cars snaked around the United Memorial Medical Center as people waited hours in sweltering heat to get tested. Some had arrived the night before to secure a place in line at the drive-through site.

“I got tested because my younger brother got positive,” said Fred Robles, 32, who spent the night in his car. “There’s so many people that need to get tested, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Dean Davis, 32, who lost his job due to the pandemic, said he arrived at the testing site at 3 a.m. Tuesday after he waited for hours on Monday but failed to make the cutoff.

“I was like, let me get here at 3, maybe nobody will be here,” Davis said. “I got here, there was a line already.”

In Florida, more than four dozen hospitals across 25 of 67 counties reported their intensive care units had reached full capacity, according to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration. Only 17% of the total 6,010 adult ICU beds statewide were available on Tuesday, down from 20% three days earlier.

Additional hospitalizations could strain healthcare systems in many areas, leading to an uptick in lives lost from the respiratory illness that has killed more than 131,000 Americans to date. At least 923 of those deaths were reported Tuesday, the biggest single-day toll since June 10 but still far fewer than the record 2,806 tallied back in April.

A widely cited mortality model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected on Tuesday that U.S. deaths would reach 208,000 by Nov. 1, with the outbreak expected to gain new momentum heading into the fall.

A hoped-for summertime decline in transmission of the virus never materialized, the IHME said.

“The U.S. didn’t experience a true end of the first wave of the pandemic,” the IHME’s director, Dr. Christopher Murray, said in a statement. “This will not spare us from a second surge in the fall, which will hit particularly hard in states currently seeing high levels of infections.”

‘PRESSURE ON GOVERNORS’

President Donald Trump, who has pushed for restarting the U.S. economy and urged Americans to return to their normal routines, said on Tuesday he would lean on state governors to open schools in the fall.

Speaking at the White House, Trump said some people wanted to keep schools closed for political reasons. “No way, so we’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools.”

New COVID-19 infections are rising in 42 states, based on a Reuters analysis of the past two weeks. By Tuesday afternoon, the number of confirmed U.S. cases had surpassed 3 million, affecting nearly one of every 100 Americans and a population roughly equal to Nevada’s.

In Arizona, another hot spot, the rate of coronavirus tests coming back positive rose to 26% for the week ended July 5, leading two dozen states with positivity rates exceeding 5%. The World Heath Organization considers a rate over 5% to be troubling.

The surge has forced authorities to backpedal on moves to reopen businesses, such as restaurants and bars, after mandatory lockdowns in March and April reduced economic activity to a virtual standstill and put millions of Americans out of work.

The Texas state fair, which had been scheduled to open on Sept. 25, has been canceled for the first time since World War Two, organizers announced on Tuesday.

In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine said the state was ordering people in seven counties to wear face coverings in public starting Wednesday evening.

(Reporting by Callaghan O’Hare in Houston and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Additional reporting by Maria Caspani, Gabriella Borter, Caroline Humer and Peter Szekely in New York and Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason in Washington Writing by Paul Simao and Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Cynthia Osterman, Tom Brown and Leslie Adler)