IN PICTURES. Lava fountain, plume of ash… Etna becomes active and disrupts the sky of Sicily

This is the fifth major eruption since the volcano resumed activity at the end of June.

The awakening of a giant. Etna, the largest volcano in Europe, located in Sicily, became active early on Sunday, August 4, providing a grandiose spectacle to the inhabitants of the surrounding area, but also causing several inconveniences. The airport of Catania, in the southeast of the island, for example, had to reduce the number of arriving flights to six per hour.

Since the resumption of activity of the volcano, the most active in Europe, Etna has erupted four times, and a fifth time on Sunday morning. In the streets of Catania, the views created by this latest eruption are worthy of paintings.

The phenomenon, aesthetic when observed from a distance, is nonetheless very powerful. The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported a “lava fountain” gushing from the volcano, accompanied by a “volcanic cloud” dispersing towards the east and southeast.

On X, the Italian news agency Ansa shared a video of the eruption of Etna, seen from the village of Linera, located about twenty kilometers north of Catania and about thirty kilometers southeast of Etna.

On social media, several residents also filmed the volcano’s eruption on Sunday. “In two minutes”, there have been “four lava expulsions”says an Internet user. “You can’t hear it in the video, but with almost every puff you hear a low-frequency thumping sound.”he adds.

On July 5th, Etna had already erupted. The ash plumes had reached a height of 4.5 km, according to the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.Sunday, the plume is also impressive. On X, residents of the surroundings of the volcano film the eruption and the ash clouds from their homes.

Italians are indeed used to seeing Etna erupt. But as every time this phenomenon occurs, it is accompanied by ash fallout on the surrounding towns, located at its foot. On social networks, locals are also sharing images of this consequence of the eruption.

“Every car, every exposed surface, is like this”comments an Internet user on X, publishing a photo of a car covered in ashes. “There are ashes everywhere”he describes in another tweet, where he shares a photo of cafe chairs covered in it. “I was shirtless (…) and it stung when they fell on me”reports another Internet user, who describes the ash fallout as small “spiky stones”.