Etna quakes add to volcano fears
A series of earthquakes – the strongest reaching a magnitude of 4.3 – shook the area around Sicily’s Mount Etna today, sending people in the nearby town of Catania into the streets in panic.
Some people were “slightly injured,” in the mid-morning panic that followed the strongest tremor, said civil defence official Enrico Galeani.
Downpours of ash and streams of lava from the volcano continued throughout the night and the morning forcing authorities to keep the town’s airport closed and the town’s children home from school, he said.
But he said lava and ash activity on the volcano was less intense than yesterday and when Etna erupted on Sunday.
Satellite photos showed the ash was carried as far away as Libya in northern Africa, 400 miles south of Etna. The lava flowed more than halfway down the sides of the 11,000 foot mountain, Europe’s most active volcano.
In 1669, a huge volcanic eruption destroyed Catania, on Sicily’s eastern coast. Its last major eruption was in 1992.
