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SICILY

Sicily’s Mount Etna has grown after six months of eruptions

Europe's tallest active volcano is now even taller, after the most active crater changed shape and size due to ongoing eruptions this year.

Sicily's Mount Etna has grown after six months of eruptions

Mount Etna’s southeastern crater has grown in height after six months of activity, Italy’s volcano monitoring agency said on Tuesday.

The famous volcano’s youngest and most active crater has risen to a new record of 3,357 metres (11,000 feet) above sea level, said INGV, the NationalInstitute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, based in the Sicilian city of Catania.

IN PHOTOS: A month of spectacular eruptions at Sicily’s Mount Etna

“Thanks to the analysis and processing of satellite images, [we can see] the southeast crater is now much higher than its ‘older brother’, the northeast crater, for 40 years the undisputed peak of Etna,” the INGV wrote in a press release.

Some 50 episodes of ash and lava belching from the mouth of the crater since mid-February have led to a “conspicuous transformation of the volcano’s outline”, with its dimensions calculated through satellite images, it said.

The northeastern crater of Etna reached a record height of 3,350 metres in 1981, but a collapse at its edges reduced that to 3,326 metres, recorded in 2018.

The crater has been churning out smoke and ash regularly since February.

Though dramatic, the eruptions are described as “normal” by scientists and pose little danger to surrounding villages.

Sicily’s government estimated in July that 300,000 tonnes of ash had been cleaned up so far.

A municipal employee sweeping up ash from the Mount Etna volcano in Milo, north of Catania, Sicily, on March 2nd, 2021. Photo: Giovanni ISOLINO/AFP

The ash has been a nuisance in surrounding areas, dirtying streets, slowing traffic and damaging crops.

In Catania, a two-hour drive from the volcano, local resident Tania Cannizzaro told AFP that Mount Etna was both beautiful and an annoyance, with ash sometimes falling “like rain”.

“Depending on the wind, the rumblings of the volcano reach Catania and make the windows shake,” she said, adding that the ashes turn the streets and balconies black.

“But there is also the spectacle, especially in the evening, when you see this red plume that moves.”

A view of lava flowing down the sides of the southern crater of the Etna volcano on February 24th, 2021 as seen from Zafferana Etnea, Sicily. Photo: Giovanni ISOLINO/AFP

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CLIMATE

Sicily braces for rare Mediterranean cyclone as storms continue

Sicily's residents are bracing for the arrival of a cyclone later on Thursday, the second this week after a deadly storm hammered the Italian island, killing three people.

Sicily braces for rare Mediterranean cyclone as storms continue
Cars and market stalls submerged in Catania, Sicily, after heavy rain hit the city and province on october 26th. Photo: STRINGER/ANSA/AFP

A rare tropical-style cyclone known as a “medicane” is set to reach Sicily’s eastern coast and the tip of mainland Calabria between Thursday evening and Friday morning, according to Italian public research institute ISPRA.

“Heavy rainfall and strong sea storms are expected on the coast, with waves of significant height over 4.5 metres (15 feet),” ISPRA said.

The Italian Department for Civil Protection placed eastern Sicily under a new amber alert for Thursday and the highest-level red lert for Friday in anticipation of the storm’s arrival, after almost a week of extreme weather in the area.

A total of three people have been reported killed in flooding on the island this week amid storms that left city streets and squares submerged.

On Tuesday, parts of eastern Sicily were ravaged by a cyclone following days of heavy rains that had sparked flooding and mudslides, killing three people.

Television images from Tuesday showed flooding in the emergency room of Catania’s Garibaldi-Nesima hospital, while rain was seen pouring from the roof inside offices at the city courtroom.

Thursday’s storm was set to hit the same area around Catania, Sicily’s second-largest city, even as residents were still mucking out their streets and homes.

Schools were closed in Syracuse and Catania, where the local government ordered public offices and courts closed through Friday.

The mayor of Catania on Tuesday shut down all businesses and urged residents to stay home.

Antonio Navarra, president of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper this week that Sicily was at the centre of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and cyclones.

“We’re trying to understand if, with climate change, these phenomena will become even more intense, if they will change their character as their frequency intensifies,” he said.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

Cars submerged in Catania, Sicily, after storms hit the city and province on October 26th. Photo: STRINGER/ANSA/AFP

Other forecasters have said the “medicane” is the latest evidence that the climate crisis is irreversibly tropicalising the Mediterranean, after the island’s south-eastern city of Syracuse this August recorded a temperature of 48.8C, the hottest ever seen in Europe.

“Sicily is tropicalising and the upcoming medicane is perhaps the first of this entity, but it certainly won’t be the last,” Christian Mulder, a professor of ecology and climate emergency at the University of Catania, told The Guardian on Wednesday.

“We are used to thinking that this type of hurricane and cyclone begins in the oceans and not in a closed basin like the Mediterranean. But this is not the case,” he said.

“This medicane is forming due to the torrid climate of north Africa and the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Aegean Sea has a temperature of 3C higher than the average, while the Ionian Sea has a temperature of almost 2C higher than the average. The result is a pressure cooker.”

The storm is expected to leave the area between Saturday and Sunday.

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