Watch a live view of Mount Etna’s eruption in Sicily, Italy, with a huge column of smoke and ash spewing into the sky above the Italian island on Monday (2 June).
Footage shared on social media shows tourists fleeing down the mountainside following an eruption from Europe’s largest active volcano.
Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said in a widely-reported statement that the volcano was experiencing strong strombolian explosions – a type of eruption – “of growing intensity”.
The pyroclastic flow — an avalanche of hot rock, ash, and gas — was “probably produced by a collapse of material from the northern flank of the south-east crater”, it added.
According to the Volcanic Discovery website, before the eruption, there were volcanic tremors that began around 10pm local time on Sunday and reached their peak shortly before 1 am.
The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Toulouse, one of nine such centres worldwide used to monitor aviation risks, warned that a volcanic ash plume had reached an altitude of around 6,400 metres.
VAAC issued a brief “code red” for aviation due to the eruption, but it was downgraded to orange.
