In just the past 24 hours there were between 250 and 270 earthquakes at Kilauea’s summit, with four explosions on Saturday sending ash to altitudes as high as 12,000-15,000 feet, said Stovall and National Weather Service meteorologist John Bravender.
The scale of the eruption and lava flow is so immense that satellites have been photographing it from above. First up, Digg shows an incredibly detailed shot from the European Space Agency's Earth Observation satellite, showing the bright flows sticking out against the lush green of the island:
And NASA Earth Observatory got in on the action with this stunning night shot of the lava flows:
Satellites aren't the only ones capturing cool photos - this view from the Gemini Observatory shows the "glow from an extensive region of fissures over the course of a single night":
However, more worrying for now is that fact that the lava crossed onto the Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) Saturday evening local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, having destroyed dozens of nearby houses in the past few days.
The plant's wells run a mile deep in some areas.
Tom Travis from Hawaii Emergency Management told CBS News that in the worst-case scenario, there would be "a steam release, many chemicals, but primarily hydrogen sulphide, a very deadly gas".
“The flow from fissures 21 and 7 was widening and advancing,” Janet Snyder, a spokeswoman for the County of Hawaii, said in an email on the position of lava heading northeast toward PGV at 12:30 p.m. (6:00 p.m. ET)
Hawaii Governor David Ige has said the wells are stable.
Since Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano began a once-in-a-century-scale eruption May 3, authorities have shutdown the plant, removed 60,000 gallons of flammable liquid and deactivated wells that tap into steam and gas deep in the Earth’s core.
But, as Reuters reports, lava has never engulfed a geothermal plant anywhere in the world and the potential threat is untested, according to the head of the state’s emergency management agency.
Residents have complained of health hazards from emissions from the plant since it went online in 1989 and PGV has been the target of lawsuits challenging its location on the flank of one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
The Israeli-owned 38 megawatt plant typically provides around 25 percent of electricity on the Big Island, according to local power utility Hawaii Electric Light.
Operator Ormat Technologies last week said there was no above-ground damage to the plant but it would have to wait until the situation stabilized to assess the impact of earthquakes and subterranean lava flows on the wells.
However, as we detailed previously, there is a long-running debate about whether PGV is fracking. The debate may...