Mount Etna Eruption Causes Air Travel Disruptions at Sicily’s Busy Airport

Italy’s Mount Etna, which happens to be Europe’s highest and most active volcano, has blown her top once again, causing flight disruptions at a nearby international airport in the process. A fresh and ongoing eruption that started Sunday is discharging a good deal of pyroclastic ash into the local atmosphere in the process.

As it has been before on many a previous occasion, Catania—a major port city on the Ionian Sea, which is situated at the foot of the volcano and also happens to be eastern Sicily’s largest metropolis—is already the recipient of much of the atmospheric fallout.

According to AP News, Catania International Airport has been closed temporarily due to fairly heavy ash fall—enough that it has already blanketed runways. Airport management company SAC told the Italian outlet ANSA that flights would be halted temporarily, until safe operational conditions could be restored.

Volcanologists at Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), which continuously monitors Etna via instrumentation installed on her slopes, had recorded an increase in tremor activity in recent days, which was evidently enough to warrant the release of a public advisory by Italy’s national Civil Protection Agency on Thursday.

INGV indicated that volcanic ash was affecting Catania and at least one other town that sits on the mountain’s inhabited slopes, but no injuries have been reported.

The Institute also noted that rainy conditions and low cloud cover are currently obstructing direct views of the volcanic event. By contrast, there have been plenty of past instances (as Etna flares up not infrequently), her eruptions have offered astounding displays of fiery explosions and glowing-red lava flows.

ANSA reported that Adrano and Biancavilla, situated off the southwestern side of the slopes, were also receiving fallout on the same level as coastal Catania, and that people there reported hearing loud booming sounds coming from the volcano on Sunday.

Public awareness of Mount Etna’s prominence on the island of Sicily may be higher than before, seeing as the second season of the hit HBO original series ‘The White Lotus’ is set mainly in the Taormina, a picturesque hilltop village that’s also situated close to the active volcano.

Due to the unpredictable nature of volcanic eruptions, there’s no telling just how long Catania Airport’s operational suspension could continue, whether it be days or weeks. One of Etna’s more recent eruptions, which also forced a shutdown of the local airport, lasted for several weeks from February through March of 2021.