Volcanoes: southern Italy on high alert, but with open airspace and trying to return to normality
The almost simultaneous eruption of the Stromboli and Etna volcanoes left the population of southern Italy with their hands on their heads, frightened by the explosions of incandescent fragments and lava, and the tourists with their heads in the air, looking at the spectacle with their breath practically suspended.
After the scare of the first two days, on the small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Stromboli lava flow has decreased and the inhabitants are trying to return to normality, dedicating themselves to cleaning up the ash that fell on the roofs of the houses and on the roads. In the Catania area the situation is more perilous because in the early hours of the morning the Etna volcano once again showed its strength, intensifying with the expulsion of lava and a column of smoke from five kilometers high.
Known for its regular and smaller eruptions – the last one had occurred in 2019 – the Stromboli volcano became active last Thursday, July 4th, with a new eruption and lava slides that took the Regional Department of Civil Protection increasing the alert level from orange to red.
The following day, July 5th, it was the turn of the Etna volcano to show itself with an eruption that caused the closure of Catania airport due to the ash.
After these two eruptions, which caused the spill of ash and lava off the Sicilian coast, the President of the Region of Sicily, Renato Schifani, decreed a state of national emergency and Civil Protection appealed to people to remain indoors and to wear masks on the street.
Four days after Stromboli “woke up†, the population returned to their routine, accustomed as they are to the displays of their volcano, the island’s biggest tourist attraction.
Etna, considered the most active volcano in Europe, is located on the east coast of Sicily and has documented eruptions since 425 BC. Etna’s eruption took place in the “Voragine” crater, one of the four that crown this great volcano which, after the explosions of February 2021, increased its height to 3,357 meters.
Despite sharing the same geographical area and occurring almost at the same time, theScientists claim that the simultaneous activity of volcanoes is a coincidence and, According to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the two Sicilian volcanoes are not connected to each other, that is, they have disconnected magmatic devices and a completely independent activity. Etna extracts magma from 30km deep, while Stromboli erupts magma from 200km deep.
