Hawaiian authorities will now arrest people if they don't evacuate the volcano's path

Volcano eruption in Hawaii.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Hawaiian authorities have ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of some neighborhoods threatened by ongoing and still-expanding lava flows from the Kilauea volcano, and those who refuse to evacuate by noon local time on Friday will be subject to arrest. After the deadline, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency will not conduct rescue missions for those in evacuation areas.

The volcano has been active for nearly a month, and "vigorous lava eruptions" continue daily. The 24 fissures have shot "persistent fountains" of lava as high as 260 feet in the air, and the lava has blanketed an area of five and half square miles and counting. However, geologists estimate a mere 2 percent of the molten lava in the Kilauea crater has moved downhill so far.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.