The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii finished erupting after 9 hours on Tuesday night, allowing Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to reopen Wednesday.
The National Park Service had closed off areas of the park, as well as a portion of Hawaii State Route 11, due to the latest episode of the ongoing Halemaumau eruption that began in December 2024.
Episode 43 started at around 9:17 a.m. local time and stopped by 6:21 p.m., according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Park rangers evacuated people who were at the summit at the time the eruption started, and also closed off the trails and overlooks nearby, park officials said Tuesday.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park said on Facebook Wednesday morning that, with the eruption over, State Route 11 fully reopened along with the entrance to the park.
Officials said visitors should still expect temporary closures in other areas, including the summit of Kilauea, where a large amount of fragmentary volcanic debris called tephra remains. Tephra can irritate the respiratory system, the eyes and the skin, per The Associated Press.
Episode 43 has unleashed a total of about 16 million cubic yards of lava onto the floor of the Halemaumau Crater, spewing out as much as 1,000 cubic yards of lava per second Tuesday morning, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.
The next episode of the Halemaumau eruption is expected sometime in late March and the first half of April, the observatory said.
