Tourists on sightseeing excursion when Mount Etna erupts
Terrified tourists have run for their lives after one of the world’s most active volcanoes spectacularly erupted during a sightseeing tour.
Mount Etna, a popular tourist attraction in Sicily, exploded with a “powerful boom” on Monday (local time), sending hot gas, ash and rock several kilometres into the sky.
Video on social media shows a group of visitors running down the side of the mountain as huge volcanic ash clouds obscure the sky behind them.
Some of the fleeing tourists stop to take photos.
Etna, on the island off southern Italy, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world but has not had a major eruption like this since 2014.
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Aviation centres issued a red warning to aircraft as Etna spewed out thick clouds of sulphuric vapour.
Hiking guide Alessio Zocco, 33, told CNN the eruption was accompanied 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 Zocco, who works on the volcano.
“It was a dramatic moment, but fortunately short-lived.
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“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.
“With knowledge, preparation, and humility, it’s possible to explore this landscape safely and meaningfully.”
About 1.5 million people a year visit the volcano, many of them trekking to its summit.
The observatory said there appeared to have been a “partial collapse” of the northern flank of the volcano’s south-east crater, reports CNN.
The owner of one tour company told CNN it 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 said in the video shared with CNN.
“It arrived all at once, an immense smoke, immense, immense roar.”
Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Observatory said all tourists and trekkers on the volcano had been evacuated safely.
