Night of roars and ash rain for the towns on the eastern side of Etna. The umpteenth paroxysmal phase of the volcano – there are now about fifty since the beginning of the year – this time lasted several hours and went through almost all night. Begun shortly after midnight, it ended only after dawn. In the middle, the usual “sample” of the activity of the South East crater: first the Strombolian activity, anticipated on the momnitor of the Etna observatory of Catania of the Ingv by the increase of the volcanic tremor, then tall fountains of lava and a huge plume of vapors and volcanic dust that the wind has directed towards the South East, with a rain of lava ash on the foothills from Sant’Alfio to Fleri, from Pedara to Zafferana; large lapilli with a diameter of a few centimeters also fell on the latter municipality.
A situation that does not worry the volcanologists of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Catania but that has kept many inhabitants of the East and South East of Sicily awake because of the loud, harmless but frightening roars, which this time accompanied this for many hours. paroxysm. Booms that in the silence of the night, and without the din of the daily noises of the city, were well felt even in Catania where the lava ash did not arrive, thus “saving” the Fontanarossa airport, in this very crowded period on the way of summer holidays, with thousands of passengers arriving and departing every day. The paroxysm went on for hours, unlike the others that occurred between last winter and the beginning of summer, which ran out in just over an hour. Three flows of incandescent magma also started from the South East, one towards the East in the desert Valle del Bove, one towards the South West, a third less fueled towards the South East, all clearly visible in the darkness of the night even from a great distance. Starting at 6 am, all the values measured in the operations room of the Catania Ingv began to drop significantly and the paroxysmal phase is now over. For the umpteenth time, lava ash remains on the streets, on the cars, on the roofs of the houses. With the inconvenience that all this entails.