Europe’s most active volcano lit up the sky on Thursday night
Streams of lava were photographed shooting into the Italian night sky on Thursday as Mount Etna erupted.
The volcano – which is both Europe’s highest and most active – began erupting at 3am local time, billowing smoke and pouring lava.
As you can see, a small fissure originally opened on one side of the crater which led to the gushes of red lava flowing out overnight.
New eruption near the summit of #Etna: two eruptive fissures have opened early on 30 May 2019 on the northeastern and south-southeastern sides of the New Southeast Crater, producing modest Strombolian activity and little lava flows. View from Tremestieri Etneo pic.twitter.com/Htl90nUYbL
— Boris Behncke (@etnaboris) May 30, 2019
Located on the island of Sicily between the cities of Messina and Catania, municipalities fans of lower league Italian football will no doubt be aware of, Etna had seen an increase of seismic activity over the last week which culminated in the eruption.
Fortunately for us, Boris Behncke, who works the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, managed to capture a series of incredible photographs of the overnight activity.
Take a look:
Scenes of #Etna's new, sub-terminal eruption, during the night of 30-31 May 2019, seen from Santa Venerina, Fiumefreddo and (last photo) Tremestieri Etneo. "Sub-terminal" means the eruption is occurring close to the summit craters, generally at around 2900-3000 m elevation pic.twitter.com/6uBXJTShkV
— Boris Behncke (@etnaboris) May 31, 2019
As well as this video footage:
Watch as Italy's Mount Etna bursts into activity, spewing lava into the air.
The last major eruption happened in 1992.
For more videos from Sky News, visit: https://t.co/RzMpoNe1Yd pic.twitter.com/SSH2WzTiHF
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 31, 2019
https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1134215458842927104
Yes, yes your old Geography teacher is absolutely buzzing at these developments.
