Etna: situation as of 6 August 2011

The eruptive activity of Etna continues, as already registered over the last few weeks.

The Central Functional Centre - Volcanic Risk sector - of the Civil Protection Department issued, during the night, a notice of  “high criticality” for the top area of the volcano and of “ordinary criticality” for the middle section, feet of the mountain and urban areas.

In the evening of 5 August the volcanic activity of pit crater (at the base of the South-East crater) started again. The eruptive activity, according to the Catania section of Ingv, guadually diminished and stopped completely around  3:51 a.m. of  6 August.There is still the thermic anomaly of lava flows that are no more kept at the same temperature and in the cooling off phase.

In particular, during the evening of 5 August, starting from 7.00 p.m., monitoring networks of Catania Ingv registered a quick increase of the volcanic tremor, and the surveillance cameras registered at 8.42 p.m. a weak strombolian activity of the pit crater of the South-East crater. The activity got more and more intense from 10.53 p.m, triggering after a little while the formation of a lava flow moving towards Valle del Bove, and the emission of a significative quantity of ash in the atmosphere moved towards South-East by the wind. From 11-37 p.m., the activity got even more intense creating a lava fountain that reached remarkable heights over the border of the crater.

The total ban of accessing the volcano over 2.920 m is extended to 22 August 2011 - in proximity of the Philosopher's Tower - , either on the North and South side, according to the ordinance of the Prefect of Catania.

The Central Functional Centre continues the surveillance activity of the phenomenon through its Ingv competence centres in Catania and University of Florence an through the operating structures of the Alpine Rescue of Guardia di Finanza and Forest Corps of Sicily Region, and territorial presidia.

Image source: Ingv-Catania, web cam.