The Catania airport was closed during the night due to the copious fallout of volcanic ash from Etna that affected Catania and therefore did not spare the runways and aprons of the Fontanarossa airport. No aircraft can leave or land at this time. Currently, the special vehicles that the airport has been equipped with for some time are in operation, for the removal of ash and the cleaning of all areas affected by the movement of aircraft.
Lava ash is in fact dangerous and harmful, both because it does not allow safe take-offs and landings and because if sucked by the engines it can cause serious damage. The airport’s Crisis Unit, which had decided to close the airport during the night, will meet again in the morning. It is expected to reopen at 10.30. Some flights, the last of the late evening yesterday, had been diverted to Palermo while this morning the airport board informs that all flights departing in the early hours of the day have been delayed; some have been canceled, such as one flight arriving and one departing for Malta or two departing for Malpensa and Rome.
A difficult situation, although not unprecedented, for the Catania airport, in full swing with the almost complete resumption of the summer program, after the end of the emergency for Covid.
During the night Etna became the protagonist of the 47th paroxysm since the beginning of the year: first the Strombolian activity, then the lava fountains several hundred meters high from the edge of the South East crater, of the four summit craters that is which has been in full swing for months, and two lava flows. To “accompany” this phase, once again a copious emission of lava ash that this time the winds have carried to the South East, causing it to fall on the city of Catania and on some villages in the hinterland.
The fall of the ash, which “in turn” affected all the centers on the eastern side of the volcano, put a strain on the municipalities that must then remove it from the roads and transport it to special storage areas, with costs that weigh heavily on the coffers of public bodies. The Sicilian Region has allocated special funds and has long requested the intervention of the national government for the state of crisis.