Mount Etna eruption forces grounding of flights at Sicily’s Catania airport

Flights to japanese Sicily have been disrupted on Sunday after the close by Mount Etna volcano started to erupt, tipping black ash onto runways and autos.

Video from the scene confirmed smoggy trying cloud blanketing roads and flakes of darkish, gritty ash scattered throughout automotive windscreens.

Flights out and in of the port metropolis and vacationer favorite Catania, on Sicily’s east coast, are suspended till 9am native time on Monday, or till they will assure protected situations, the airport stated on Twitter.

Europe’s most energetic volcano can awaken from its slumber a number of occasions a 12 months, jettisoning lava and ash excessive over the Mediterranean island.

But it hasn’t unleashed a significant eruption since 1922.

The blasts usually create a spectacle of flaming lava, however cloud cowl on the wet day masked views of this eruption, in keeping with Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), which carefully displays Etna with devices put in on its slopes.

It stated ash had fallen on Catania and at the very least one city perched decrease down the slopes of the three,330 metre excessive volcano.

he INGV indicated that monitoring had recorded proof of a stepping up in tremor exercise in current days.