Etna erupts: Volcanic cloud closes Italy airport

A cloud of volcanic ash spewing from Europe’s most lively volcano has prompted the closure of considered one of Sicily’s largest airports, resulting in flights being delayed, cancelled and diverted.

Sicily’s Catania worldwide airport, generally known as Catania–Fontanarossa Airport, is to stay closed till 8 p.m. native time on Monday following the eruption of close by Mount Etna, the airport press workplace stated in a press release.

“All arrivals and departures are due to this fact prohibited,” the assertion stated, including that “passengers are kindly requested to current themselves on the airport solely after consulting their airline.”

The volcanic exercise, which started late Sunday, advanced right into a “lava fountain,” producing a volcanic cloud dispersed in a southerly path, in response to the Italian Nationwide Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology’s Etna observatory.

That is “producing a fallout of ash within the southern sector of the volcano and past,” it stated.

A number of flights scheduled to reach in Catania, together with these from locations akin to Malta, France, Austria, and different Italian areas, have been cancelled, delayed, or diverted, in response to flight-tracking service Flightradar24.

The closure comes simply days after the airport resumed operations, having been disrupted by a serious fireplace in its terminal constructing in mid-July.

In addition to being essentially the most lively, Mount Etna is Europe’s highest volcano, at about 3,350 metres tall.