Mount Etna erupts in Sicily, sending huge plume of ash into sky and tourists fleeing

Mount Etna in Sicily has erupted, sending a huge plume of ash into the sky.

Social media footage showed tourists running down the slopes as the highest active volcano in Europe erupted.

Italy‘s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said it expected the erupting ash cloud to disperse in a west-southwest direction.

The monitoring institute said the “amplitude values of volcanic tremors are currently high” and were “showing a tendency to increase”.

It added the eruptive activity has “continued with strombolian explosions of increasing intensity that, at the moment, are to be considered to be very intense and almost continuous”.

“In the last few hours there’s been reports of [a] little thin ash in Piano Vetore,” the institute said.

The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre Toulouse has issued a “code red” aviation warning, advising planes that a significant volume of ash in the atmosphere is likely.