Former Vancouverite 'rattled' by constant Hawaii quakes and nearby lava
Canadian Cam Muir and his wife run a tea farm near Hawaii's very active Kilauea volcano
Cam Muir has been feeling constant little earthquakes at the tea farm he and his wife run near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. The area has been shaken by more than 100 small quakes in the past three days, and at least two larger ones in the 5.0-magnitude range.
But it's the huge plume of reddish smoke and ash Muir spotted coming from an active part of the volcano that tells the story: Kilauea is erupting.
Muir, who lived in Vancouver for about 20 years and got a PhD in biology from Simon Fraser University before moving to Hawaii, has a number of friends in the rural area that has been evacuated due to flows of lava scorching roads, forests, and properties.
"I think that we're OK," he said Friday, saying his farm is a few hundred metres uphill from the area where the lava is flowing from the earth.
'It's shocking and it's stunning and it's scary'
He's a little more than 20 kilometres, as the crow flies, from the Leilani Estates area that's been most affected.
"It's shocking and it's stunning and it's scary, because our friends have lava appearing in their backyards," said Muir. "It's a community, so we all feel affected — rattled by it.
"I mean, we haven't been able to get in touch with them in the last days — definitely, they're displaced," he said, adding that many in the area live off-grid, and news is travelling slowly.
Muir said he's become a bit desensitized to the regular small earthquakes, but the intensity has picked up, and the cluster seems very focused.
M 6.9 - 16km SW of Leilani Estates, Hawaii, 2018-05-04 22:32:55 UTC, 5.0 km depth. <a href="https://t.co/g2hWHdnPex">https://t.co/g2hWHdnPex</a> This is in almost exactly the same location at the deadly 1975 M 7.1 earthquake. <a href="https://t.co/ImkbbL1ruq">pic.twitter.com/ImkbbL1ruq</a>
—@usgs_seismicThe U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported a quake with a magnitude of 6.9 in the area on Friday afternoon.
"You live in Vancouver and a [magnitude] 10 is going to happen one of these days, but you don't really think it's going to happen today, or tomorrow even," said Muir. "That's kind of the same as living on top of the biggest volcano in the world; it's active and you hope nobody gets hurt and someone might."
According to Muir, he and his wife have given the possibility of an evacuation some thought, and like many of the people in Leilani Estates, they would struggle to get their animals rounded up.
"That would be a real problem, because our dogs are farm dogs," he said, explaining that cooping them up in the car with their cats wouldn't go smoothly.
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