Italy's Etna volcano undergoes most violent eruption in last 20 years

Mount Etna in Italy's Sicily island, a big active volcano in Europe, is undergoing the most violent eruption recorded in the last 20 years, local experts have said.

"The phenomenon is now underway ... we are following it with the greatest possible attention," Eugenio Privitera, head of the Etna Observatory at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INVG), was quoted as saying by local media.

Etna, which along with Stromboli -- also in southern Italy -- is one of the two volcanoes with persistent activities in the Mediterranean country, began erupting in the night between Wednesday and Thursday, spilling a huge column of black ash that rose as many as 13 km into the sky and emitted fountains of lava.

In fact the ongoing eruption, Privitera said, is not a lava flow, but has an explosive character.

"The biggest eruption of the first type was the one that occurred between 1991 and 1992, the largest in the last 360 years," he explained.

The current one, instead, "for the amount of spilled material is the biggest event of this kind observed in the last 20 years," the expert highlighted.

Hours after the volcano began to erupt, residents in various Sicilian cities such as Catania and Messina found roofs and streets covered in a fine dusting of ash, as shown by the many pictures with spectacular views posted on social networks.

The local atmospheric conditions pushed the airborne particles many dozens of kilometers away. The ashfall hampered traffic and also forced temporary closure of the airports of Catania and Reggio Calabria, the latter on Italy mainland.

The eruption also damaged the local citrus cultivations, according to a statement released by Italy's largest farming association Coldiretti.

Coldiretti said the ashfall caused two types of problem, either blocking the maturation process of the fruits or partially burning those that were already ripe, thus causing big loss to the Sicilian economy. Endit