Striking new video captures moment when Mount Etna recently erupted

New video shows the moment when Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano, spewed bubbling lava and hot ash into the Sicilian sky earlier this week.

On Sunday (Jan. 17), lava began "oozing" from the Etna's southeast crater and toward the east, according to Boris Behncke, a volcanologist at the INGV-Osservatorio Etneo in Catania, Sicily, Express reported.

By Monday evening, the crater exploded in a "new paroxysmal eruptive episode," releasing bursts of lava, hot ash and gas, Behncke tweeted.

One lava flow spilled over the east side of the crater, snaking toward the uninhabited Valle del Bove, a horseshoe-shape depression in the side of the volcano; a second lava flow was also detected on the northern side of the crater, Express reported.

The molten lava glowed red against the dark rock, and it showered the volcano's summit with spectacular sparks.

Italian authorities issued an ash advisory for surrounding cities, and the debris were found as far away as Fleri, which lies 18 miles (28.9 kilometers) from the volcano.

Mount Etna has almost continuous volcanic activity near its summit craters and in the Valle del Bove, Live Science previously reported.

These eruptions near the summit, like the one that occured Monday, rarely endanger people living nearby.

I lived in the little town of Belpasso, Sicily (where the first video was shot from), while stationed at Sigonella NAF. It was not unusual to look out the back window of our apartment and see a fiery red glow from the crater of Mt. Etna, or even from a side fissure. I’ve also been to the main crater in its “less active” stage. Years later, I returned to Sicily with the family. We weren’t able to go to the top because it had recently blown it’s lid, but did go up part of the way. There were restaurants and a hotel up the slope near the top that were wiped out. Like a lunar landscape...beautiful in a rugged way.

I can remember in 1944 when my father was showing me the National Geographic story on the eruption of Paracutin in a Mexican cornfield. I was just tall enough to see the pictures as the magazine lay on the kitchen table. I have been a volcano junkie ever since. There was also a great article on mosquitos. I recently found an old copy. It was just as I remembered it. Sixty years ago I went to summer school in Mexico. Tried to climb Mt. Popocatepetl, but ice and no rope to use prevented us climbing the last 300 feet. Actually it was not a climb, it was a long steep hike like up a snow covered sand dune. Also traveled in an area called “mil cumbres”, a thousand peaks. Apparently those cornfield type eruptions are a regular thing. Geological time regular, not human time.

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