Loading ...is not the actual eruption. Lava is slow moving, as Goldi noted, unless it happens to boil up in your street it is easy to get out of the way. But this earthquake swarm going non-stop along the volcano coast has never been seen before.
This whole area is a lava shelf that is slowly subsiding into the sea. With this whole swarm of quakes in the area, my fear is that this big shelf could slide off the mountain into the deep sea. That would generate a Pacific wide Tsunami that would take out California, 2500 miles east of here. Local officials seem worried also, with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issuing reminders about Tsunami awareness and inundation zones along the islands coasts.