The sky that lights up orange over the Strait, the dark silhouette of Etna and, above the summit craters, the plume of ash that stretches into the sunset. It is the postcard that the seafront of Reggio Calabria offered at sunset on Thursday 24 September, with the statue of Athena Promachos dominating the Strait Arena in the foreground.
The day on the volcano had begun with a new phase of activity. In the morning the INGV Etna Observatory in Catania reported an emission of ash from the summit craters, with an eruptive cloud approximately 4 kilometers high and dispersed towards the south-south-east. The red Vona code was triggered, the highest level of alert for air traffic, while Catania’s Vincenzo Bellini airport remained operational. The volcanic tremor, according to the INGV, remained at medium-low values.
The show seen from Calabria
About seventy kilometers as the crow flies, from the Calabrian shore the volcano stands out clearly on clear evenings, and the Falcomatà seafront remains one of the privileged points to observe it. The bronze statue of Athena, the work of the Messina sculptor Bonfiglio inaugurated in 1932, acts as a sentinel on the scene: a thread that binds, also in this shot, the two banks of the Strait.