The Sicilian volcano Etna, very near the coastal city of Catania (East Coast), witnessed a new eruption on Tuesday, spectacular but without danger, which caused a rain of small volcanic stones and ash on this city whose airport closed.
The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanoes (INGV) at AGI said.
“We saw the worst of it,” commented Stefano Branca, Director of Ingv in Catania, saying that the event that started at the end of the afternoon “was not at all disturbing”.
Firefighters reported earlier in the evening on their Twitter account that they were still monitoring the situation in three small municipalities at the foot of the volcano, Linguaglossa, Fornazzo and Milo.
Photos of the late afternoon eruption show an impressive pink plume of ash atop the volcano’s snow-capped summit. At nightfall, this cloud largely dissipated, but Etna was still the scene of many glowing lava flows.
Etna, with an area of 1,250 km2, is the highest active volcano (3,324 m) in Europe, with frequent volcanic eruptions about 500,000 years ago.
“Evil thinker. Music scholar. Hipster-friendly communicator. Bacon geek. Amateur internet enthusiast. Introvert.”