CNN
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A massive eruption at Mount Etna forced tourists to flee the volcano on Monday after a plume of high temperature gases, ash and rock “several kilometers high” billowed into the air above them, Italian authorities said.
Footage posted on social media shows long lines of people hurrying downhill away from the explosion while the owner of one tour company told CNN they had 40 people on the Sicilian volcano when it erupted.
Giuseppe Panfallo, a guide with Go Etna, filmed his tour group huddled together with an enormous ash cloud in the distance.
“We were nearly grazed, look at this cloud here. We were two steps away and thank goodness we have a responsible guide with us,” he says in the video shared with CNN.
“It arrived all at once, an immense smoke, immense, immense roar.”
About a dozen tour operators work on Etna at any given time, the Sicilian Civil Protection Agency told CNN. All tourists and trekkers on the volcano when it erupted have been evacuated safely, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Observatory.
The eruption petered out late evening local time, the observatory said, adding that all three lava flows “are now cooling.” Sporadic bursts of ash dispersed near the summit of the volcano, with the tremor having fallen “to low values,” the observatory reported.
The volcano on the Italian island is a popular tourist destination visited by 1.5 million people a year, many of whom trek almost all the way to its summit.
Although Mount Etna is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, there hasn’t been an eruption of this magnitude since 2014, according to the observatory.
These eruptions often stop as quickly as they start, the observatory added, though explosions are still increasing in intensity and the mountain is spewing out a very small amount of lava and fire.
At the moment, there is “no danger for the population,” said the president of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, as he thanked local emergency crews “for the immediate activation of monitoring and safety protocols.”
He recommended “maximum precaution for hikers” to “avoid the summit area of the volcano until further notice, in consideration of the potential evolution of the phenomenon.”
The eruption, which began overnight, produced explosions heard as far away as Taormina and Catania, which are about 50 kilometers and 40 kilometers (31 miles and 25 miles) away, respectively, according to several people who posted footage on social media.
One eyewitness told CNN the eruption on Monday was characterized by a “sudden, powerful boom.”
“Today’s eruption seemed, at first, similar to others — but what made it stand out was a sudden, powerful boom,” said hiking guide Alessio Zocco, 33, who works on the volcano. “It was a dramatic moment, but fortunately short-lived.
“Mount Etna is a majestic and unpredictable force of nature. It commands respect, but it also offers one of the most powerful and awe-inspiring experiences you can witness,” added Zocco. “With knowledge, preparation, and humility, it’s possible to explore this landscape safely and meaningfully.”
The observatory said that the preliminary observations show a “partial collapse” of the northern flank of the volcano’s southeast crater, which has produced spectacular lava flows during recent eruptions in the last few months.
None of the ash is expected to fall on Catania, the city at the foot of the volcano, though authorities are prepared to alert people to take cover if the wind changes, the city’s mayor Enrico Tarantino told CNN.
Nearby airports in Catania and Palermo remain open too as, currently, the wind is not blowing the ash in that direction. The Sicilian Civil Protection Agency instructed all flight travel to avoid the area and some flights from Catania have been directed to Palermo, according to Flight Radar Data.
Authorities have closed many of the roads heading up to the volcano to prevent people trying to get close to the eruption and from getting in the way of first responders and emergency vehicles, Tarantino added.
Around 1 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET), the volcano started spewing hot lava, which is more in line with previous eruptions, an observatory spokesman said.
The observatory previously defined the volcanic activity as a pyroclastic eruption, resulting in a “significant increase in volcanic tremor and the formation of an eruptive column containing a lethal mixture of high-temperature gases, lava grains, volcanic ash, and rock fragments of various sizes that rapidly descends down the slopes of the volcano.”
