Rome, Sept 28. (dpa/GNA) – Sicily’s Catania Airport, extended flight restrictions on Monday due to a thick ash cloud from the nearby Mount Etna volcano, that has been disrupting air traffic since the weekend.
The airport, the most important on the Italian island, said airlines were transferring passengers to other Sicilian airports such as Palermo or Comiso, because of the restrictions on departures, which is set to last until midnight (2200 GMT).
The Mediterranean island is a popular holiday destination, but tourists have faced disruption for months, due to volcanic ash from Etna, repeatedly forcing Catania’s airport to restrict flights.
The volcano on the Italian island is the most active in Europe. Ash is currently emerging from the northßeast crater and being carried southward by the wind.
A reddish-brown smoke cloud has been building above the volcano, reaching a height of 4 kilometres at times, according to the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
The institute’s experts said this was not an immediately imminent explosive phase. Rather, they said, the cloud was a typical phenomenon, a kind of cleansing process of the volcano’s interior.
“Like a vacuum cleaner in reverse,” said volcanologist Marco Neri.
GNA