Activity on Etna \u201cincreased very suddenly\u201d, the institute said, noting that the episode produced 300- to 400m lava jets and an eruption column loaded with rock fragments, which rose a few kilometres above the summit of Etna and were pushed west by the wind.<\/p>\n
Etna is a popular tourist destination all year, with its snowy landscape and frequent volcanic activity attracting photographers, hikers and winter sports enthusiasts despite frequent eruptions and lava flows. <\/p>\n
Footage showed dozens of skiers continuing to summit Etna today as smoke rose in the background.<\/p>\n
Following an eruption earlier this year, officials urged visitors to stop approaching running lava, calling the natural phenomenon \u201cextremely dangerous\u201d.<\/p>\n
Etna had an \u201ceventful year\u201d, the institute said, citing three eruptions, the first beginning in February. <\/p>\n
A \u201cspectacular\u201d eruption in June had tourists scrambling down the volcano. That eruption \u2013 which sent lava flowing in three directions \u2013 was probably caused by \u201cthe collapse of material from the northern flank\u201d of Etna\u2019s southeast crater, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Activity on Etna \u201cincreased very suddenly\u201d, the institute said, noting that the episode produced 300- to 400m lava…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5003,2246,308,1975,42611,1558,125746,6757,42895,24458,4510,4731,50073,125745,36876,60349,91003,6871,42,78,125743,296,1743,47772,5165,13233,43,8244,13109,125744,8861,1361,2846,40,38,41,39,125742,102],"class_list":["post-205960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-activity","tag-2246","tag-actually","tag-at","tag-bang","tag-been","tag-booms","tag-bringing","tag-clouds","tag-columns","tag-dark","tag-days","tag-eruption","tag-etna","tag-explosive","tag-fountains","tag-gearing","tag-has","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-intensified","tag-into","tag-launched","tag-lava","tag-loud","tag-mount","tag-news","tag-recent","tag-several","tag-sicilys","tag-sky","tag-that","tag-them","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-volcanic","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}