Mount Etna threw smoke and ash into a new eruption this week, but Italian authorities said the volcano, one of the most active in the world, posed no danger to nearby villages.
“I saw worse,” the head of the INGV National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in the nearby city of Catania, Stefano Branca, told the Italian news agency AGI.
Estimating that the eruption in the southeastern crater of Etna began late Tuesday afternoon, Branca insisted that the latest explosion of activity “is not at all worrying.”
However, with small stones and ash raining, the authorities decided to close Catania International Airport.
Emergency officials said on Twitter that they were closely monitoring the situation in the three villages at the foot of the volcano – Linguaglossa, Fornazzo and Milo.
The images showed a spectacular feather of rose-colored ash above the snow-capped peak, but the cloud largely dissipated as night fell, while lava flows continued to glow.
At 3,324 meters, Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe and has erupted frequently in the last 500,000 years.