Viral Video: Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has roared back to spectacular action, sending up a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) high volcanic ash cloud over eastern Sicily. The lava flow from Etna, was centered around the crater on the mountain’s southeast slope, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology said Monday. As a result, Vincenzo Bellini international airport in nearby Catania closed at lunchtime Monday due to the eruption. - Viral Video: Woman Jumps on Rope While Wearing High Heels, Creates Guinness World Record | Watch

The towering cloud, visible for kilometers, was the latest impressive show of Etna’s power this month. Earlier in February, a particularly powerful eruption sent bolts of lightning dramatically across the sky over eastern Sicily.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or property damage on the inhabited towns ringing the slopes of the volcano, which is popular with hikers, skiers and other tourists. By Monday afternoon, the lava flow from the crater had stopped, the institute said.



Watch the video here:

Etna has had scores of known eruptions in its history. In 1669, in what has been considered the volcano’s worst-known eruption, lava buried a swath of Catania, the largest city in the east on the island of Sicily, and devastated dozens of villages. More recently, in 1983, dynamite was used to divert lava threatening towns. In 1992, the army built an earthen wall to contain the lava, flowing from Etna for months, so it wouldn’t barrel into one of the villages on the slopes.

(With AP inputs)