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SICILY

IN PICTURES: Italy’s Etna spews smoke and ash forcing airport closure

Mount Etna, one of the world's most active volcanoes, belched smoke and ashes in a new eruption on Monday, forcing the temporary closure of the airport of Catania in Sicily.

Published: 21 February 2022 16:04 CET
Mount Etna spews volcanic smoke and ashes on March 4, 2021.
Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, has been spewing out lava, gas and ash. Photo by Giovanni ISOLINO / AFP

The ash cloud rose 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) into the air above a crater on the south-east of the volcano, the INGV National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology said on Twitter.

The nearby Vincenzo Bellini international airport in Catania closed at lunchtime Monday until further notice, with inbound flights diverted to Palermo.

READ ALSO: IN PHOTOS: A month of spectacular eruptions at Sicilyโ€™s Mount Etna

Ash covered roads, balconies and roofs of towns nearby, Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said.

INGV said it had recorded a gradual rise in volcanic-seismic tremor — induced by escaping gases — which could be a sign that Etna is heading towards another spectacular burst of fiery lava fountaining, known as paroxysmal activity.

At 3,324 metres (nearly 11,000 feet), Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and has erupted frequently in the past 500,000 years.

On Twitter, Italians joked about the eruption.

“Your majesty Etna, can we get a break? Not five minutes goes by that you have to play some little joke on us?” read one.

Pointing out that the same event happened almost to the week last year, one Twitter user wrote, “Etna why do you like the month of February, do you want to tell us something?”

And another called for “A minute of silence for all the laundry hanging up in Catania right now.”

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: ‘Exceptional’ Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

An "exceptional" dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent's climate monitor said on Monday, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime.

Published: 8 April 2024 14:15 CEST
IN PICTURES: 'Exceptional' Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said the latest plume, the third of its kind in recent weeks, was bringing hazy conditions to southern Europe and would sweep northward as far as Scandinavia.

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the latest event was related to a weather pattern that has brought warmer weather to parts of Europe in recent days.

“While it is not unusual for Saharan dust plumes to reach Europe, there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of such episodes in recent years, which could be potentially attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said.

This latest episode has caused air quality to deteriorate in several countries, Copernicus said.

The European Union’s safe threshold for concentrations of PM10 — coarser particles like sand and dust that that can irritate the nose and throat — has already been exceeded in some locations.

A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows a rapeseed field under thick sand dust blown in from the Sahara, giving the sky a yellowish appearance near Daillens, western Switzerland. – An “exceptional” dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent’s climate monitor said, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The worst affected was the Iberian Peninsula in Spain but lesser air pollution spikes were also recorded in parts of Switzerland, France and Germany.

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Local authorities in southeastern and southern France announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday.

They advised residents to avoid intense physical activity, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The dust outbreak was expected to reach Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia before ending on Tuesday with a shift in weather patterns, Copernicus said.

The Sahara emits between 60 and 200 million tonnes of fine dust every year, which can travel thousands of kilometres (miles), carried by winds and certain meteorological conditions.

The Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa saw just 12 days within a 90-day period from December to February where skies were free of Saharan dust, the local weather agency Aemet had reported.

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