Etna keeps up its spectacular explosions; ash rains on towns

摘要

A particularly spectacular blast from Italy's Mount Etna volcano belched out a towering cloud of ash and lava stone yesterday onto Sicilian villages, the latest in a series of explosions since mid-February. Italy's national geophysics and volcanology institute INGV said the powerful explosion at 2 a.m. was the 10th such big blast since Feb. 16, when Europe's most active volcano started giving off an impressive demonstration of nature's fire power, coloring the night sky in shocking hues of orange and red. Increasing tremors rattled the mountain throughout much of the night. Ash and small lava stones rained down on eight villages on Etna's slopes yesterday morning, while lava flowed from the southeast crater slowly down an uninhabited side, as it has been doing for the last three weeks, the institute said. The column of ash and lava reached a height of 33,000 feet yesterday, according to scientists who monitor volcanic activity with specialized instruments from an observatory at Etna in eastern Sicily.