{"id":483701,"date":"2026-10-03T08:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483701\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T08:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:02:08","slug":"hawaiis-picturesque-holei-sea-arch-collapses-into-the-ocean-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483701\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii\u2019s picturesque H\u014dlei Sea Arch collapses into the ocean \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Google Maps red pin<\/a> for the H\u014dlei Sea Arch, a rugged, 90-footbow formed by 550-year-old lava flows and the prolonged sculpture of the salty Pacific, now states, \u201cPermanently closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the National Park Service said the picturesque arch at Hawai\u2019i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island had collapsed sometime between Sept. 23 and Sunday, around the time a tropical cyclone<\/a> sent sizable swell into the coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exact time of the collapse is unknown and could have occurred when the park was temporarily closed during Tropical Storm Nolo,\u201d the park service said in a statement.<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It also said some who want to see what\u2019s left of the H\u014dlei Sea Arch have stepped too close to the edge of surrounding cliffs \u2014 as seen on social media. <\/p>\n

The park service warned sightseers to keep a safe distance from the eroding coastline, where they could put \u201cthemselves and first responders at great risk of falling and drowning off the rough, wave-swept coast,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cVisitors are urged to stay back from the unstable coastal cliff edges which drop off vertically into the ocean and present a serious falling hazard,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The collapse was a long time coming, the park service said, with the 2018 K\u012blauea eruption<\/a> shaking the ground enough to damage the arch\u2019s neighboring cliffs. <\/p>\n

New cracks on the feature and its surroundings in early 2020 inspired Hawai\u2019i Volcanoes National Park officials to move the H\u014dlei Sea Arch\u2019s viewing area farther from land\u2019s end, the park service said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater that year, massive surf from Tropical Storm Darby broke off a chunk of rock from the lower part of the arch,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Geological Survey<\/a> said the arch is a product of \u201cdifferential erosion by ocean waves\u201d whereby the sea works to first remove material along cracks and weaker sections of basalt rock.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day the ocean crashes against the pillar of the arch, eroding it a little more,\u201d it said in its entry for the arch. \u201cOne day, it will be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Santini contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Google Maps red pin for the H\u014dlei Sea Arch, a rugged, 90-footbow formed by 550-year-old lava flows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2289,48,52,51,47,50,49,42334],"class_list":["post-483701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-hawaii","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-national-park-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}