In the Path of a Volcano, Sicilians Go With the Flow

Anna D’Agada knows there’s a chance that a river of lava from Mt. Etna could destroy her home in the next few weeks or months. But that doesn’t stop her from loving Europe’s largest and most active volcano.

“Frankly, I’m not afraid, because we live here, we were born here,” she said. “Every once in a while, it gives off a little smoke and gives us some positive energy. I like it.”

Mt. Etna has put on a spectacular show since mid-July, when it began one of its periodic eruptions, pouring out lava, spewing ash and roaring with explosions. Lava has traveled halfway to Nicolosi, and plans are in place to evacuate residents and fight the flow of molten rock should it threaten this Sicilian town perched on the mountain’s southern slope and nearest to the front of the lava flow.

But the refrain a visitor hears over and over from locals is that Mt. Etna is “the good volcano.”

“Not only Nicolosi residents but the entire population of all the towns around Etna are linked to Etna by a love relationship,” said Nicolosi Mayor Salvatore Moschetto, 62. “For us, Etna is everything. It represents the fire that for Sicilians is our character. It gives us the possibility to live, to have a tourism industry. It’s a beautiful volcano.

“So after every eruption, we don’t run away. We roll up our sleeves and start working again.”

A combined earthquake and eruption wiped out Nicolosi in 1669, when the ground opened under the settlement to send forth a river of lava that reached the sea. The town was rebuilt and has had several close calls since.

The current eruption, the first major lava flow since a 1991-93 awakening, has destroyed about half of a tourist site farther up the mountain. Ski lifts, part of a gondola system, a parking lot and the ski slope itself have been obliterated. Workers with earthmoving equipment are fighting to save other facilities--a hostel, a restaurant, a scientific monitoring station and souvenir shops--by building giant barriers to deflect the flow.

Lava has gushed from three main sites along a four-mile fissure that have opened in the mountain during more than 2,000 small earthquakes since July 12.

The flow from the lowest emission point starts about six miles from Nicolosi, a town with 6,300 permanent residents and twice that many in the summer vacation season. The lava traveled three miles in late July before cooling enough to stop moving; in recent days, more lava has poured on top of and to the side of the earlier flow.

If the mountain keeps erupting, the lava will eventually flow farther down the slope, ever closer to Nicolosi and other nearby towns, said Sonia Calvari, a volcanologist with the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

“It needs just time, nothing else,” she said. “Time and continuing this way.” The risk will be higher, she said, if so-called lava tubes are formed.

When a river of lava flows down a slope, its edges cool and harden first, while the molten lava continues to flow down the middle, in a kind of channel, Calvari explained. Sometimes the top of the lava also cools into a crust of rock, while molten lava remains underneath.

When that happens, “you don’t see the lava moving on the outside, but it’s still moving on the inside, like in a pipe,” she said. “When it breaks through on the lower end, it can cause damage.”

Lava can flow inside the tubes without significant cooling, which greatly increases the distance it can travel.

So far, only short and scattered tubes have formed, said Franco Barberi, national director of civil protection. But if a long tube takes shape, that could increase the risk to settlements below, he said.

If that happened, emergency workers would either divert the flows with earthen barriers or blast a hole in the side of the tube to send part of the flow into a less damaging direction.

Few residents of Nicolosi know much about this science or the planning for evacuations, which, if needed, would take place over at least several days and involve helping residents move everything they wish to from their homes.

Many are more interested in going up as close as allowed to the eruptions to watch the nighttime fireworks as lava is thrown into the air. On evenings when the mountain is spewing mostly lava and not too much ash, more than a thousand people drive up as far as police allow, and some walk still closer to the eruption sites.

“To see a mountain of fire move, it’s really a spectacle,” said D’Agada, who can watch the lava from her home but still traveled up the mountain one night for a better look. “It gives me the chills. . . . From my home, in the evenings, you can see the explosions. It seems like colorful bombs.”

Many Nicolosi residents say they don’t believe there’s any chance of the lava reaching town.

“When you look at how many people go up in the evening to look at the lava flow, you can know that this danger they’re talking about doesn’t exist at all,” said Antonio Ragusa, 53, a Nicolosi house painter. “The lava is not dangerous, because the lava flow doesn’t have a great speed. It would take years for it to come here. It’s impossible. And anyway, you can divert the lava.”

Such confidence didn’t prevent more than a thousand people from turning out about two weeks ago for a religious procession and Mass in Nicolosi’s central square to pray for the lava to stop.

Mt. Etna’s attraction for tourists is reflected in the items for sale at the Bonanno Bros. Bar in Nicolosi, where one can pick up a video called “Etna, the Wonder Volcano” or buy red-colored distilled liquor with a label showing Mt. Etna erupting.

“It’s flammable,” said bar owner Gaetano Bonanno, 45. “It’s 70% alcohol. Even the local people drink it, mostly in the winter. It’s very strong for the summer.”

Mt. Etna is “the most beautiful thing Sicily has,” Bonanno added. “It’s the central point of interest for tourists.”

Bonanno said he doesn’t expect the lava to reach Nicolosi, but if it does, “don’t think we’ll go away.” Asked his opinion about plans to try to divert the lava if it approaches, Bonanno just laughed. “You can’t divert it,” he said.

Not everyone is enamored of Mt. Etna, but even those who view it as a nuisance show a certain tolerance.

“Etna’s doing its job--to produce lava and create the land,” said Domenico Geofreddo, 79, a retired farmer. “Whether you like it or don’t like it, it does its job.”

The ash spewed by Mt. Etna has created more work for almost everyone, requiring people to sweep in front of their homes to avoid tracking too much of the mess into their homes. It’s especially added to the tasks of Pero Sciacca, 54, a city sanitation worker who was singing to himself about Mt. Etna while sweeping up piles of ash in Nicolosi’s central square.

Asked to repeat the words of the ditty, Sciacca looked embarrassed and said he made it up himself but that it went like this: “Etna, Etna, Etna. Go away ash. When it wants to smoke, it stops.” The last line appeared to be a play on words, conjuring up the image of someone stopping work when he wants a cigarette, but Sciacca declined to explain exactly how it applied to the mountain.

Sciacca stressed, however, that the words didn’t mean he resented the extra work of sweeping. “I want to work,” he said. “I need the work.”

As for the mountain, “we can’t do anything about it,” he added. “Only God can do anything about it. So let’s sing.”

Barberi, the civil protection chief in charge of fighting the lava if it advances on the town, has a slightly different take on the matter.

“My feeling is that obviously man can do little against the energy and strength of the volcano,” he said. “But man has a peculiarity. It is more intelligent than the volcano. This is the only reason we can try to fight against this enormous energy.”