Hawaii’s picturesque Hōlei Sea Arch collapses into the ocean

The Google Maps red pin for the Hōlei Sea Arch, a rugged, 90-foot bow formed by 550-year-old lava flows and the prolonged sculpture of the salty Pacific, now states, “Permanently closed.”

On Thursday, the National Park Service said the picturesque arch at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island had collapsed sometime between Sept. 23 and Sunday, around the time a tropical cyclone sent sizable swell into the coast.

“The exact time of the collapse is unknown and could have occurred when the park was temporarily closed during Tropical Storm Nolo,” the park service said in a statement.

The park service lamented the collapse of the natural feature it said was likely rooted in lava flows roughly half a millennium ago and then slowly shaped by the reduction of a roiling sea.

It also said some who want to see what’s left of the Hōlei Sea Arch have stepped too close to the edge of surrounding cliffs — as seen on social media.

The park service warned sightseers to keep a safe distance from the eroding coastline, where they could put “themselves and first responders at great risk of falling and drowning off the rough, wave-swept coast,” it said.

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business