New quakes, Mt Etna eruption rattle Sicily
Date: 31-Oct-02
Country: ITALY
Author: Antonio Denti
The strongest tremor, which registered 4.4 on the Richter scale, jolted the town of Santa Venerina, southeast of Etna, at about 11 a.m. (1000 GMT), damaging hundreds of homes, shops and the local church, and slightly injuring a handful of residents.
"We were really lucky that we were outside when it hit," said tearful resident Maria Lagana. "Nobody was hurt, but can you imagine the terror with all these children around?"
A series of quakes followed, rattling eastern Sicily all day and into the night, forcing families to camp outside rather than risk being buried in their homes by debris.
After a hastily-called Cabinet meeting this week night, the Italian government declared a state of emergency in the region around Etna to deal with the threats, but no details about a plan of action were given.
The latest shock comes two days after initial quakes rocked Etna awake, sending rivers of lava down the mountain and streams of ash into the sky.
Dark clouds stretched to Africa and were visible from space amid continued volcanic activity this week.
Experts said the latest earthquakes, however, were not necessarily related to Etna's rumblings and were optimistic the lava flows would be brought under control.
"The situation is fairly calm, in the sense that there isn't any danger for the towns," Enzo Boschi, director of the national geophysics institute said.
"The lava fronts are moving a little less quickly," he said, but added it was hard to predict volcanic activity.
But local residents were not convinced.
SHOWERING CEMENT AND ASH
Catania, Sicily's second-largest city which sits in the shadow of Etna, said airports and schools would remain closed until Thursday as ash rained down on the city. People carried umbrellas to protect themselves from flaming particles.
In Santa Venerina, screaming mothers ran into the streets clutching their children as huge chunks of cement showered down on cars and sidewalks. An entire block of homes was damaged, forcing some 1,000 of the 7,000 residenst into tents.
In Linguaglossa, a popular ski town whose name means "tongue of lava", locals marched through town with a statue of their patron saint in the hopes of staving it off the biggest lava river, which was only five miles (eight km) away.
When they did this in 1923, the lava halted, they said.
Over the last three days, boiling lava has sparked fires in nearby pine forests and thick ash has painted the sky above eastern Sicily black.
While firefighters and ambulances attended to the shocked residents of Santa Venerina, planes continued to dump gallons of water on the flaming trees this week.
Bulldozers moved higher up the 3,350-metre volcano to build barricades to direct the lava flow away from ski resorts and restaurants nestled in the woods.
Etna, which had its last major eruption in 1992, is almost constantly rumbling, but experts say its fissures act like vents, releasing pressure at regular intervals instead of allowing it to build up into a massive explosion.
Etna has not produced any serious activity since a series of eruptions in July and August last year, described as one of the most erratic and complex displays in 300 years. (With additional reporting by Luke Baker in Rome).
