Italy's Mount Etna volcano erupts, spewing lava and hot ash | Watch viral videos

Mount Etna, the active volcano atop the Italian island of Sicily has yet again started flaring up, with visuals of hot ash and lava cropping up on social media and latest news reports. Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, which runs studies and updates on volcanic activities in the region, noted that the recent flaring was majorly "explosions of increasing intensity".

"The volcanic tremor has reached very high values with the location of the centroid of the springs in the Southeast Crater area. Infrasonic activity is also high with events located in correspondence to the Southeast Crater. The deformation signal of the DRUV station continues the trend of variation that started with the activity. Other deformation monitoring networks show no significant change," the post in Italian continued.

Visuals of the volcanic eruption are spreading like wildfire on social media. A netizen posted a glimpse of the volcanic activity at Mount Etna with the caption, "Mount Etna’s just coughed up more carbon and sulfur in 24 hours than a year of British farming. But don’t worry, pay more tax to subsidise global corporations, and that will definitely save the planet." (LiveMint has not independently verified the authenticity of the video)

Another X handle posted glimpses of the volcanic eruption with the caption, “Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted again, sending massive clouds of smoke into the sky above Catania, Italy. The eruption, characterized as a strombolian explosion, intensified throughout the morning, with near-continuous activity reported.”

“According to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, the eruption produced a thin layer of ashfall in the Piano Vetore area, following increased explosive activity, sending tourists fleeing for their lives as the smoke plume rises,” the caption continued.