Work to reopen a road in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park that has been closed by lava flows for 41 of the 53 years it has existed is under way to create an evacuation route through the park should Highway 130 be overrun by lava from the ongoing Kīlauea Volcano eruption.

An ongoing series of earthquakes, some measuring a magnitude of 4.4, rumbled across Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on Wednesday, causing minor damage to park buildings while cracks crept their way across nearby roads and billowing clouds of ash and steam rose into the sky thousands of feet.

Fourteen-ton boulders tossed nearly a mile. Swarms of temblors quaking the East Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Dust and ash clouds rising a handful of kilometers into the air, and then raining down on surrounding communities. That explosive eruption was preceded by a draining of magma from a lava lake in the volcano's Halema‘uma‘u crater like we've witnessed in recent weeks.

After cracking open the earth and spewing lava fountains more than 200 feet high at times, Kīlauea Volcano at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park next could produce explosive eruptions that eject ballistic blocks 6 feet wide and weighing a ton or more, according to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory.