Explosions at Hawaii’s Kilauea summit keep producing magnitude 5.3 quakes

(CNN)For the seventh time in eight days, an explosion at the Kilauea summit on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted Thursday morning with a force equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 or higher, according to the US Geological Survey.

The latest came at about 4:49 a.m. (10:49 a.m. ET), registering at magnitude 5.3 and sending “an ash-poor plume” 1,000 feet into the sky, the USGS said. It was the biggest of more than 400 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or higher that have struck in the vicinity of the volcano between noon Wednesday and noon Thursday, the overwhelming majority of which were minor temblors.