Italy's Mount Etna Risen To A New Record
Update: 2021-08-11 10:15 IST
Gangi, Sicily, with Mount Etna in the background. (Sandro Bisaro/Getty Images)
According to INGV, the National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, situated in Catania, Sicily, the youngest and also most dynamic cone of the famed volcano has risen to a new height of 3,357 metres (11,000 feet) above sea level.
As per Italy's volcano monitoring service, in the following six months of action, Mount Etna's southeastern crater has increased in height, making Europe's tallest active volcano that it was earlier.
The press release stated that the satellite photographs showed that the southeast crater is now significantly higher than its 'older brother,' the northeast crater, which has been the indisputable peak of Etna for 40 years.
According to the pictures received from the satellite, since mid-February, there have been 50 episodes of ash and lava erupting from the crater's mouth, resulting in a noticeable alteration of the volcano's outline.
In 1981, the northeastern crater of Etna reached a height of 3,350 metres, but a collapse at the crater's borders lowered it to 3,326 metres, which was reported in 2018. Since February, the crater has been spewing smoke and ash despite posing minimal harm to the adjacent settlements.
However, in July, the government of Sicily reported that 300,000 metric tonnes of ash had been cleared. The ashes has caused havoc in the neighbouring areas, dirtying streets, halting traffic, and destroying crops.
Meanwhile, people who witnessed Mount Etna called it as beautiful as inconvenience, but at times seeing it with ashes looks mesmerizing and seems like rain. While the activities rises from the volcano reach Catania, the windows started getting shakedown by it and the streets turned into blackness.