Hawaii reports first serious injury from volcano as lava threatens escape routes

A stream of lavathreatened to block a key Hawaii highway on Sunday that servesas an escape route for coastal residents, while the first knownserious injury was reported from fresh explosive eruptions fromthe Kilauea volcano.

A homeowner on Noni Farms Road who was on a third-floorbalcony had his leg shattered from his shin to his foot when hitby lava spatter, said Janet Snyder, a spokesperson for Hawaii County's mayor.

She added that lava spatters "can weigh as much as arefrigerator and even small pieces of spatter can kill." Noother information was immediately available.

As lavadestroyed four more homes, molten rock from twohuge cracks merged into a single stream, threatening to blockescape routes and touching off brush fires.

The erupting lava, which can reach a blistering 1,093 C, was expected to hitHighway 137 overnight if it kept up its rate and direction offlow, the County of Hawaii's Civil Defense Agency said.

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Video shows active lava on ground and time lapse from Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea

Authorities are trying to open up a road that was blocked bylava in 2014 to serve as an alternative escape route shouldHighway 137 or another exit route, Highway 130, be blocked,Jessica Ferracane of the National Park Service told reporters.

The park service is working to bulldoze almost a mile ofhardened lava out of the way on nearby Highway 11, which hasbeen impassable, she added.

The Hawaii National Guard has warned of mandatoryevacuations if more roads become blocked.

But officials went house-to-house in the area to urge moreresidents to flee, Snyder said, though no head count of the newevacuation was available early Sunday.

They also warned of laze, clouds of hydrochloric acid andsteam embedded with fine glass particles formed when hot lavahits ocean water.

For weeks, geologists have warned that hotter, fresher magmafrom Kilauea's summit would run underground and emerge some 40 kilometreseast in the lower Puna district, where older, cooler lavahas already destroyed 44 homes and other structures.

"Summit magma has arrived," U.S. Geological Survey scientistWendy Stovall said on a conference call with reporters.

"There is much more stuff coming out of the ground and it'sgoing to produce flows that will move much farther away."

Fountains of bright orange lava were seen spouting at least six metreshigh, and spewing rivers of molten rock on Saturday.

Carolyn Pearcheta, operational geologist at the Hawaii Volcano Authority, told reporters that hotter and less viscous lava could be on the way, with fountains spurting as high as 180 metres, as seen in a 1955 eruption.

"We've seen the clearing out of the system," she said. "Wecall that the 'throat clearing' phase."

The area affected by lava and ash is small compared with the Big Island, which is about 10,360 square kilometres. The volcano has spared most of the island and the rest of the Hawaiian chain.

Officials have reminded tourists that flights, including on the Big Island, have not been affected. Even on the Big Island, most tourist activities are available and businesses are open.

New explosive eruption

At the volcano's summit, another large explosive eruption occurred around midnight, sending up a nearly three-kilometre-high ash plume, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. There was another explosion around 4 p.m. (10 p.m. ET), according to a Reuters reporter.

Scientists expect a series of eruptions from Kilauea, one ofthe world's most active volcanoes, that could spread ash andvolcanic smog across the Big Island, the southernmost of theHawaiian archipelago.

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Kilauea sends plume of ash and debris nearly 9,000 metres up

That could pose a hazard to aircraft if it blows into theirroutes at around 9,100metres.

Around 2,000 residents of Leilani Estates and Laipuna Gardens housing areas near Pahoa, about 48 kilometres south of Hilo, were ordered to evacuate due to at least 22 volcanic cracks that have opened.

Many thousands more residents have voluntarily left theirhomes due to life-threatening levels of toxic sulfur dioxide gasspewing from vents in the volcanic fissures.

More than 300 people were staying at three different shelters as of Saturday,Snyder said.

Steve Clapper stood in the rain outside a shelter where he and his mother have been staying since evacuating Leilani Estates. He sleeps in his truck with his dogs while his mother sleeps inside the shelter.

The uncertainty has made himwant to get his 88-year-old mother, who has dementia and is on oxygen, off the island.

"We don't have any control over it, and this could go on for years," he said.