Hawaiian Volcano Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Jan. 3 -- Hawaii's Mount Kilauea has churned, seethed and shown its might for 7,300 days and nights in a row. Today the volcano was still at it, as pillars of steam filled the sky at dawn.

"I don't think anyone thought the eruption would last for 20 years," said Don Swanson, the chief scientist at Kilauea for the U.S. Geological Survey. "What we're seeing is a real act of creation in the process of happening."

Every day, says Swanson, Kilauea emits the equivalent of 40,000 truckloads of lava. It comes up through giant fissures, 60 miles deep in the earth, cooling and hardening as it flows downhill toward the sea.

In 20 years, the volcano has added 550 acres of new land to the shoreline of Hawaii.

"It really is astounding to everybody to think the eruption is going on for 20 years, and you could walk right up and see it," Swanson said.

While Kilauea does possess a distinct natural beauty, it is, of course, dangerous. It can decimate forests, roads, and homes. In 1990, it consumed the entire town of Kalapana.

"Nothing can stop the lava," said Kalapana resident John Sweezey after escaping. "It comes! It comes!"

Deadly and Destructive

Volcanoes have caused some of the deadliest and most destructive recorded natural disasters.

In 1815, the eruption of Tambora in Indonesia destroyed the surrounding area and caused abnormally low daily temperatures. Some 92,000 people were killed — many in a famine caused by crop failures.

Sixty-eight years later, Indonesia's Krakatau erupted, causing a tsunami and claiming 36,417 lives.

In 1902, the eruption of Mount Pelee, located on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, killed 29,025 people and coated an entire city with volcanic ash.

Compared to those, Kilauea has seemed benign. Ten people have died in the last decade, several after disobeying warnings from public safety officers.

Corrosive ‘Vog’

But the clouds of sulfuric gas that come from volcanic eruptions are corrosive. Hawaiians call it "vog" — volcanic fog — chemically similar to components of urban air pollution.