Hawaii Just Lost Its Ancient Hōlei Sea Arch to the Pacific

The collapse of one of Hawaii's most photographed natural landmarks happened without a single witness. The Hōlei Sea Arch, a basalt formation that framed the Pacific at the end of Chain of Craters Road, crumbled into the ocean sometime between September 23, 2026, and September 27, 2026, while the surrounding area was closed during Tropical Storm Nolo. Park officials confirmed the loss in early October 2026 and warned visitors to stay clear of the coastline where the formation once stood.

At roughly ninety feet high, the landmark had anchored sunsets and tourist photos for generations. Its collapse was not sudden in geological terms: the same ocean that sculpted the Hōlei Sea Arch had been taking it apart for years. But its disappearance still startled the public, because the end came quietly, behind a closure fence, during a storm. According to the park, the structure was still standing on the earlier of those two dates and was gone by the night of the later one — the exact hour remains unknown.

How the arch fell

The timing of the failure is known only within a four-day window. According to reporting by Fox Weather, the Hōlei Sea Arch was intact when the park shut its gates ahead of the storm and had vanished when gates reopened. Park officials have not said the weather caused the collapse, and as reported by the Associated Press, the exact moment it fell cannot be reconstructed because nobody was there to see it.

The geology behind the structure explains both its grandeur and its fragility. The Hōlei Sea Arch was cut into the cliff of a lava flow that the park dates to about five and a half centuries ago. Waves wore away layers of differing hardness at different rates, a process geologists call differential erosion, until the softer rock gave way and a window of stone opened over the surf. The same process never stopped working. Sea arches are temporary features by nature: the surf that builds them eventually tears them down, and the park notes that new formations may appear as the coastline keeps shifting.

A long decline, from the 2018 eruption to a 2022 battering

The fall of the Hōlei Sea Arch was preceded by nearly a decade of warning signs. Earthquakes during the 2018 eruption and summit collapse of Kīlauea fractured the coastal cliffs near the site, and the damage did not heal. In January 2020, rangers found new cracks and instability along the original overlook and closed it to the public, roping off the trail to the cliff edge. A replacement viewing area opened that March, set back about a thousand feet inland from the unstable ground.

Then came the battering of July 2022. Swells of twenty to twenty-five feet, driven by the remnants of Hurricane Darby, slammed into the southern coast and knocked a large piece of rock from the base of one of the Hōlei Sea Arch's legs. The park warned at the time that the structure could fall at any moment without warning, and noted that walking on it had always been forbidden and the surrounding cliffs were too steep and dangerous for hiking. Even then, the arch held on — for four more years, through two hurricane seasons — before the September storm finished the job.

What visitors need to know now

Anyone planning a trip should take the park's warning seriously. The coastline around the collapse site is unstable, and the National Park Service says the area presents a serious falling hazard. Shortly after the Hōlei Sea Arch's collapse was confirmed, social media photos showed people slipping past barriers into the closed zone, a gamble officials called dangerous for both the trespassers and any rescuers who would have to reach them, noting the "great risk of falling and drowning" such behavior creates. Stay behind the perimeter barriers and away from the cliff edges, which can collapse without warning.

The name of the lost Hōlei Sea Arch carries its own history: hōlei is a small endemic plant in the milkweed family, and the park described the collapse as the latest transformation of its remote and rugged coastline. Visitors can still walk the inland viewing area that replaced the original overlook, and the broader volcanic landscape — including the volcano's ongoing activity, covered in our reporting on Kilauea's new vents — remains open. For more coverage of the natural world, browse our science topics page.