Death on Hawaii

Dangers of Lava Watching

Richard Arthur, a reader of this blog, has sent me THIS LINK which gives the details of the death of lava tour guide. It is well worth reading.

Richard writes:-

I didn't know Sean King personally but he was leading a group of tourists just yards from where my Wife and I were fortunate to witness an active lava break out.  We were completely on our own at Kalpana on the big island of Hawaii on my birthday in September last year.  It is a sobering think how easily our superb experience could have turned from awe inspiring to disaster.  The spectacle was truly amazing and I have attached an image of the small active flow we witnessed next to yours truly for scale.  Apart from wrecking the soles of new boots from a combination of walking, for two hours in complete darkness, over sharp lava glass and only recently solidified magma we were unscathed - apart from our wooden walking sticks which started out at five feet long and ended up as three feet of near charcoal.   I understand a lei was placed on the active lava flow in his memory.

Here is Richard Arthur's photo of himself and some lava