Mount Etna: Lava pours out of volcano as new split appears
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Mount Etna has erupted for the first time this year, forcing an airport at Catania to temporarily close. The 3,350m-high volcano choked the skies out with a thick column of smoke more than one kilometre high. The Department of Civil Protection said nearby town centres are not at risk
But the Central Emergency Department is keeping a watchful eye on the towns of Linguaglossa, Fornazzo and Milo.
According to Professor Paul Byrne, Associate Professor of Planetary Science North Carolina State Univerisity, the eruption is a sign of the volcano “doing its thing”.
The volcano expert described the blast as a “big Strombolian eruption from the summit”.
He shared a video on Twitter showing a fountain of lava several hundred metres high spewing from the summit.
How to watch the Mount Etna eruption live online:
You can watch a live stream of the erupting volcano by clicking here.
The stream is hosted by Skyline webcams and shows whisps of what appears to be smoke near the volcano’s summit.
Ash from today’s eruption was seen settling on cars in Catania but, thankfully, there have been no reports of injuries and damage.
Catania is Sicily’s second-biggest city and is home to the Catania Fontanarossa Airport, which was temporarily closed due to the danger posed by the ash.
A cleaning effort overnight removed large amounts of volcanic ash from the runway and taxiways.
Billowing clouds of orange smoke were filmed over the town of Paterno, just west of Catania.
But according to Stefano Branco, head of the INGV National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, Sicily has seen “much worse”.
The volcano expert told Italian media the eruptive activity was “not at all worrying”.
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Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and has erupted about 200 times since 1500 BC.
The volcano has been very active in recent years, and has been erupting for the last 500,000.
The year 2001 was particularly busy, with a spate of 16 eruptions that began in July that year.
The eruption was accompanied by earthquakes and the opening of at least five volcanic vents.
According to the US space agency NASA, which saw the eruption from space, lava from the eruption flowed within three miles of the town of Nicolosi.
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