Italy's Stromboli Volcano Erupts, Flows Lava Into Sea

A volcano on the Italian island of Stromboli erupted on Sunday, causing lava to stream into the sea.

The volcano, off the southern Italian cost near Sicily and home to around 400 people, erupted early on Sunday morning.

Online video footage shows a huge grey cloud of smoke filling the whole skyline, as well as red hot lava creeping down the volcano into the ocean.

On Sunday morning, the Etneo Observatory of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), recorded a pyroclastic flow from the northern crater area that moved along the Sciara del Fuoco before reaching the sea. The eruption caused the partial collapse of the crater terrace, and the lava flow produced a three-minute seismic signal.

Italy's civil protection authorities issued a level orange warning—the second highest in the four-color volcano warning scale—after the eruption.

No casualties or damage have been reported from the eruption.

Newsweek has contacted the INGV for more comment.

The Stromboli volcano is one of the most active in the world and has been continuously erupting for the last 90 years.

The last time it erupted before last weekend was only September 29.

According to the INGV, the volcano erupted in October, September, August, July, May, February and January this year. It said the September 29 eruption generated ash plumes that rose 300 metres above the volcano's summit.

There were also subsequent low-intensity explosions that ejected tephra (fragments of rock ejected into the air by an erupting volcano) 100 metres high, before the lava flow emerged and ran down to the ocean.

David Pryle, a professor of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, told Newsweek: "Stromboli is one of the best monitored volcanoes in the world, but when activity increases it can still pose challenges to monitoring and civil defense teams."

In recent years, the volcano's activity has mostly affected a region on the north-west of the island called the Sciara del Fuoco, meaning 'stream of fire'.

"Even when Stromboli shows high levels of activity—as at present—the lava flows and avalanches of hot debris usually remain confined to this channel [Sciara del Fuoco]. So although the activity level is high, the threat to the island residents is little changed," he added.

Pryle said the main risks to local communities come from the "small possibility" of a much larger explosion, or paroxysm, that might scatter volcanic blocks, bombs and ash across Stromboli island.

Stromboli does have a record of erupting in short-lived but violent 'paroxysms', most recently in 2019, he said.

"These violent explosions can be accompanied by shock waves, which have shattered windows in the past. These explosions can also throw metre-sized blocks as far as 1 km away from the summit, as well as scatter ash across the whole island," Pryle added.

Since 1990, these paroxysms have occurred on average about once every six years, he said.

It certainly remains possible that the activity may increase further, he warned, adding that avalanches running down the slopes of the Sciara del Fuoco into the sea may trigger small tsunamis.

Italy itself has three active volcanoes—Stromboli, Mount Etna in Sicily and the Vesuvius volcano close to the southern city of Naples.

At the end of May and in June, Mount Etna erupted, lighting up the sky around it.

Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe at around 3,357 metres, also had a major eruption in February, blasting up a 12 kilometre-high pillar of volcanic ash into the sky, which blanketed nearby towns and villages, Italy's civil protection agency reported at the time.

Last month, five tourists fell to their deaths at an active volcano in Russia. The volcano was Eurasia's highest, the Klyuchevskaya Sopka in Russia's far east.

Two other tourists were rescued and a guide, who were evacuated by helicopter, and taken to the nearest settlement, the village of Klyuchi, Russia's state-run news outlet RIA Novosti reported.

In August, a violent eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano ejected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere. At least six died as a result of the volcano and damages were estimated to be around $90 million.