Emergencies
Volcanic eruption in Sicily – airport temporarily closed
Hot lava flows from the Etna volcano. Photo: Salvatore Allegra / AP / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Etna just doesn’t want to rest. Air traffic therefore had to be temporarily suspended on Tuesday.
After an eruption of the Etna volcano on the Italian island of Sicily, the nearby airport of the city of Catania temporarily ceased operations on Tuesday.
The airport announced in the afternoon that no machine could take off or land. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology had registered volcanic activity at the south-east crater of Mount Etna since late morning.
On photos of the institute a huge column of smoke could be seen rising from the more than 3300 meter high mountain. On the night of Tuesday, Etna had already spat lava, which ate its way down the snow-covered slope down to about 1,800 to 1,700 meters. There were initially no reports of injuries or major damage. The airport in Catania in the south of the volcano has had to temporarily block the airspace in the past during eruptions, especially when the ash cloud was moving southward, as on Tuesday.