Keen tourists are flocking to Mount Etna in Sicily to observe spectacular eruptions on the volcano, however native officers are actually asking them to knock it off, saying their looky-loo methods are hampering rescue providers and the emergency response.
Mount Etna’s first 2025 eruption intensified over the weekend, producing substantial lava flows that reduce by way of the mountain’s deep snowpack and prompted hundreds of vacationers to climb up the Sicilian slope to get a greater look.
Lava flows from a fracture on Mount Etna throughout an eruption of the volcano on Feb. 14, 2025.
Etna Stroll/AFP by way of Getty Photos
In a post to Facebook on Sunday, Sicily’s head of regional civil safety, Salvo Cocina, described how slim streets resulting in the volcano have been filled with parked automobiles and site visitors jams, making it virtually not possible for emergency automobiles to entry the positioning.
He additionally wrote that 4 folks, none of whom had been significantly injured, had been rescued on Sunday. And within the in a single day hours between Sunday and Monday, different folks had been rescued, together with a girl who reportedly had a “panic assault,” all of whom weren’t correctly geared up or ready for the tour.
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The mayor of Adrano, one of many communities closest to the newest eruption, even issued an order over the weekend prohibiting anybody from getting within 500 metres of the lava circulation.
A view of Mount Etna seen from Adrano, Catania, which is producing a brand new eruption, on Feb. 14, 2025.
Salvatore Allegra/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
Maybe unsurprisingly, the order has been largely ignored. Tons of of movies have been posted to social media, experiences The Guardian, exhibiting curious onlookers getting within centimetres of the lava flows — and even some folks snowboarding alongside one giant molten river.
“I’ve seen many photographs and movies of individuals dangerously close to the entrance, even snowboarding,” Carlo Caputo, the mayor of close by city Belpasso, instructed The Guardian. “Although visually hanging, it exposes them to critical dangers, because the lava, interacting with the snow, can immediately vapourize it and, with the thermal vitality launched, could violently hurl fragments or rocks.”
A view of Mount Etna seen from Adrano, Catania, which is producing a brand new eruption on Feb. 11, 2025.
Salvatore Allegra/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
Mount Etna is thought to erupt frequently, and as of Feb. 11, a brand new fissure had opened up on the southwest Bocca Nuova crater, bringing a number of lava flows to the floor. By Monday, ash emissions from the crater had grow to be so thick that air site visitors round Sicily was disrupted and dozens of flights from Catania Airport diverted.
As of Monday, the lava had advanced about 4 kilometres down the slope, Italian information outlet Il Submit experiences.
© 2025 World Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
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