Mount Etna ash suspends arrivals at Italy’s Catania airport

Catania planetary airdrome services the eastbound portion of Sicily, 1 of Italy’s astir fashionable tourer destinations.

Mount Etna, 1 of the world’s astir progressive volcanoes, has belched fume and ashes successful a caller eruption, forcing the suspension of arrivals astatine a adjacent airdrome successful Sicily.

“Due to Etna’s eruptive enactment and the associated merchandise of volcanic ash into the atmosphere, the airspace corresponding to the unreality … has been closed,” Catania airdrome said successful a connection connected Saturday.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3In Pictures: Etna’s spectacular caller eruption
• list 2 of 3Etna eruption sends rocks and lava flying, injures 10
• list 3 of 3Concerns astir eruptions astatine Italy’s Mt Etna

“All arriving flights astatine Catania Airport are suspended until 12:00 section clip (10:00 GMT). Departures of craft presently astatine the airdrome are operating normally,” it added.

Catania planetary airdrome services the eastbound portion of Sicily, 1 of Italy’s astir fashionable tourer destinations.

A plume of fume could besides beryllium seen billowing from the acme connected a webcam connected the website of the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, which monitors Etna.

At 3,324 metres (nearly 11,000 feet), Etna is the tallest progressive volcano successful Europe and has erupted often successful the past half-million years.

Tough restrictions and ash advisories person been successful spot since past July owed to increasingly intense eruption enactment and person led to demonstrations from guides who instrumentality tourists up the upland to spot the lava flow.

In January, aft authorities successful the metropolis of Catania suspended oregon restricted excursions to spot the volcano’s lava flows, guides demonstrated for the archetypal clip successful beforehand of Mount Etna’s lava travel gate, calling the caller restrictions excessive and saying the lava flows are slow-moving capable to beryllium viewed safely, arsenic has been done successful the past.

Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology confirmed successful January that portion Mount Etna’s eruptions are ongoing, the lava fronts are cooling and not advancing further.