Etna Erupts, Quakes Kill 1, Injure 12

Mt. Etna erupted without warning Wednesday morning and triggered a series of earthquakes that destroyed a resort hotel on one of the mountain’s slopes. One man was killed and 12 other guests were injured, officials said.

A Catania city official said that about 200 firefighters, police and civil defense workers are ready, if it becomes necessary, to evacuate about 5,000 residents of two villages on the southern slope of Europe’s most active volcano.

However, the official, Roberto Sorge, told reporters that the towns do not appear to be in danger because the lava streaming from a height of about 5,905 feet is being trapped in a large reservoir about 1,640 feet below.

“There’s a lot of space in the reservoir, and as long as it continues to flow there, there is no danger,” he said.

Six Miles Away

The villages of Zafferana and Milo are about six miles away from the place of the eruption, on the volcano’s southeast side along a tremendous cleft called the Valle del Bove.

Police said the man killed at the hotel, Carmelo di Stefano, was hit by a falling beam. He had been spending the Christmas holidays at the snow-capped volcano with his family.

Sorge said the 12 injured people were taken to a hospital in nearby Linguaglossa, about 10 miles northeast of Etna.

State-run RAI television said many guests ran out of the hotel when they felt smaller tremors, but that the injuries occurred after the third and strongest quake, which struck after they returned to the hotel because of the extreme cold.

Police said chairs, beds and other furniture came crashing through several floors of the Hotel Le Betulle, a cement and wooden structure. About 35 guests were registered at the hotel when the volcano erupted.

Experts said the hotel was directly over the epicenter of the strongest earthquake, which registered 7 on the 12-point Mercalli scale, equivalent to 5 on the Richter scale.

Etna’s last major eruption was in May, 1983, when dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed. One person was killed.