11 minutes ago! Eruption of Mount Etna! There is a lot of hot lava in Sicily! Italy in mourning!

Flights to and from Catania, a popular tourist destination, will be suspended until normal safety conditions are assured, the airport said in a Twitter post. As images in the Italian media showed, cars in the city were covered in a layer of dark sandy dust. Flights serving the city of Catania in eastern Sicily were halted Sunday after an eruption of nearby Mount Etna threw volcanic ash onto the runways, airport authorities said. The 3,330-meter high volcano can erupt several times a year, spewing lava and ash high above the Mediterranean island. The last major eruption occurred in 1992. Geologists who have studied this area say that there is every reason to say that this volcano has been erupting for about 200 centuries, and the peculiarity of the current situation is that lava flows on Stromboli are a rare phenomenon.