Red Cross Volunteers From Colorado, Wyoming Cancel Trip To Help Volcano Victims In Hawaii

DENVER (CBS4)- The American Red Cross of Colorado and Wyoming will no longer be sending volunteers to help people in Hawaii affected by the erupting volcanoes. The trip has been canceled.

More than 2,000 residents of Hawaii's Big Island are out of their homes on Monday morning.

A new volcanic fissure on the Big Island sent gases and lava exploding into the air, prompting officials to issue calls for more evacuations as residents awaited a possible major eruption at Kilauea volcano's summit.

Hawaii County Civil Defense issued an emergency cellphone alert after the fissure was discovered early Sunday morning. The agency said one "unidentified structure" was destroyed by the new vent, bringing the total number of homes and other buildings lost to lava to nearly 40.

Residents living near the fissure were told to evacuate, and two nearby community centers were serving as shelters for people and pets.

Lava spread across hundreds of yards (meters) of private land and loud explosions rocked the neighborhood not far from the Leilani Estates subdivision, where more than a dozen other active vents opened over the past week.