HONOLULU — The eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island continues to ease, scientists said Sunday, reinforcing an earlier pronouncement that the mountain’s first flare-up in nearly 40 years might soon end.
“We have good news to report,” Ken Hon, the scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory, said during a briefing. “The eruption is still at an extremely low level at this point.”
Hon said the eruption is contained entirely within the volcano’s cinder cone. The USGS said a small amount of light remained visible at night through a vent in the cone, but the channels below that vent “appear drained of lava.