The destructive fury of the erupting Kilauea volcano was unleashed on the Big Island’s Leilani Estates housing development, with the number of homes and other structures destroyed leaping to 82 from a previous count of 50, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Some 2,200 acres of land have been torched by lava since 3 May, in what is likely to be the most destructive eruption of Kilauea in more than a century, according to the County of Hawaii.
Firefighters went door to door evacuating residents before the lava arrived.
About 37 structures are already “lava locked”, meaning homes are inaccessible, and people who do not evacuate may be trapped.
Hawaii County Civil Defense said in an alert that any residents remaining in the current affected areas should evacuate now.
Magma is draining underground from a sinking lava lake at Kilauea’s 1,247-metre summit before flowing about 40 km east and bursting from giant cracks, with two flows reaching the ocean just over five kilometers away.
