Hawaii lava bomb injures 23 boat tour passengers
HAWAII — Will Bryan captured the exact moment when their early morning Hawaiian island boat tour on Monday turned tragic.
“I just saw the rocks coming towards us and the first thing I thought was to get down, and to tell Erin to get down, and we tried to cover her … and as soon as the first set of rocks kind of hit my back, then it was just terrifying cause there’s nowhere to hide… the boat is very small and I think everyone went through the same thing you hear all the screaming, cause there’s nowhere to go.”
Bryan and his girlfriend Erin Walsh, are vacationing in Hawaii. Bryan tells BA that they decided to take the boat tour off the coast of the Big Island to see the lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano’s eruption up close.
Kilauea Volcano has been spewing lava since May 3rd. The lava bomb that pierced through the roof of the aluminum vessel left a basketball size hole.
Officials say 23 people were injured. 13 people were treated at hospitals and ten people sustained minor injuries, including Oregon residents Bryan and Walsh.
After Monday’s incident, the Coast Guard now prohibits vessels from getting closer than 300 meters from where the lava flows into the ocean.
Officials say it is unclear if hotspot’s boat was within that zone.
State and federal authorities are conducting the investigation.
According to Jun Agbayani (a downtown Waikiki-Butterfly Lounge Security Consultant), it is always nice to enjoy the beauty of Hawaii, but you cannot be blinded by all the nice things around you and forget your own safety and those of your love ones. The Kilauea volcano has been active for quite sometime now, and you cannot be that one who is misguided or uninformed about what a volcano could do. When volcano erupt (e.g. Mount Saint Helen), the fallout was felt in California, is that far…To set a 300 meter safe distance from the lava activity, it sounds half-baked…