Mount Kilauea volcano has erupted near a residential area on Hawaii's largest island, prompting a local state of emergency and the mandatory evacuation of 1,700 residents.

Extremely high levels of dangerous sulphur dioxide gas have been detected in the evacuation area, the Civil Defense Agency tweeted.

Community centres have been opened to provide shelter.

The eruption follows a series of strong earthquakes over recent days.

A volcanic crater vent - known as Puu Oo - collapsed earlier this week, sending lava down the mountain's slopes towards populated areas.

Officials had been warning residents all week they should be prepared to evacuate as an eruption would give little warning.

Eyewitness Maija Stenback: 'You could feel the eruption'

We live in Leilani Estates, about six blocks away from the eruption.

We were evacuated a couple of hours ago and we are now with friends. It's me, my daughter, her boyfriend, and their two children, who are six years old and 20 months old. We all got shoved in a car and off we went.

Within about half an hour of the eruption, it went on social media, so me and my daughter went down to look at it. You could hear and feel the eruption a good half a mile away, and the closer you got, the more you could feel it.

It was like when someone plays the bass really heavy, and you can feel the bass - you could really feel the power and the lava - the colour of the lava was unbelievable, and the sound was unbelievable. It sounds very explosive, like something really explosive is coming out of a little hole, it's spitting out as hard as it can. It's not so much what you hear, it's what you feel.

Hawaii's Governor David Ige says he has activated military reservists from the National Guard to help evacuate thousands of people.

Television pictures showed a line of lava fountains from Mount Kilauea bursting up under a road and adjoining gardens.

Close-up footage shot by a drone showed lava emerging from a fissure in a wooded residential neighbourhood and oozing down a road.

Earlier this year, a false alert warning of an incoming ballistic missile caused panic, leading the US state to reassess its alert system.

• 1 hour ago

A Hawaiian volcano is blasting out "ballistic blocks" the size of kitchen appliances and the authorities are warning it could get worse.

Since a new zone of Mount Kilauea began erupting almost two weeks ago, lava has wrecked dozens of homes and forced hundreds of people to be evacuated.

An ash plume rising up to two miles (more than 3,000m) prompted officials to warn pilots to avoid the area.

Quakes as strong as magnitude 4.4 have been felt on the largest island.

The floor of the volcano's caldera (the bowl where lava erupts) is deflating, causing stress at the volcano's base.

This is causing earthquakes and new fissures to open in the ground, and creating the risk of new, highly explosive steam-powered eruptions as the magma meets underground water.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44054064" rel="nofollow - What stops eruptions of lava?

The ash plume can be seen from the International Space Station.

Source:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44152515" rel="nofollow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44152515

For weeks, I have been feverishly trying to get Government GPS readings from satellite/GPS monitors on Hawaii, to find out what the scientific data actually proves about the ongoing eruption of the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii.  I needed these irrefutable factual data sources to track a landmass called the "Hilina Slump" which is a large, unstable land area that could fall-off into the Pacific, causing a cataclysmic Tsunami for the US West Coast and elsewhere.  Getting the government to turn over the data was like pulling teeth.  They simply DID NOT WANT THIS DATA RELEASED.

LATE yesterday (conveniently on a Friday) and well after close-of-business, I "came into possession of" the factual government data. I won't say how.  

Now I know why the feds didn't want this information out: It's NOT just the Hilina Slump in danger of falling off Hawaii, it's the the entire southeastern flank of the big island! 

About 2/3rds (east-to-west) of the southern coast of the big island of Hawaii is BREAKING-OFF toward the Pacific Ocean; and it's not moving slowly anymore!

If this section of the island does break off and plunge into the Pacific in one fell swoop (because of the ongoing earthquakes and volcano eruption) the west coasts of the United States, Mexico, Central and even much of South America will be utterly destroyed from the beach to perhaps 16km inland!

If that takes  place, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc  . . . . GONE.  Wiped out.

DJ-I do not claim Hal Turner being correct on this but it is good he is warning people of a possible "once-in-a-long-time-event". A major explosive eruption, a major landslide, a major tsunami-things we may expect maybe even up once in ten million years could be just hours away ! What we take for granted is a big present of modern day life, in historical perspective very abnormal. 

(Up to 1900 most people died between the age of 40 and 50, healthcare was very limited, just like education good housing etc. In just over a 100 years we doubled our lifespan, improved housing, healthcare, education. Part of that was possible because of "enviromental stability". We are now better able to deal with floods, storms, draughts etc.-until they get stronger...and then population increase from 2 billion to almost 8 billion will be a big problem.)