page_title: Mount Etna
section_title: Historical eruptions
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Etna / History of volcanic eruptions / Eruptions / Historical eruptions
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Eruzione dell'Etna del 1766, incisione colorata di Alessandro D'Anna.
context_page_description: Mount Etna, or Etna, is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is the highest active volcano in Europe outside the Caucasus and the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height of 3,326 m, though this varies with summit eruptions. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km² with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in the Canary Islands surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region west of the Black Sea. In Greek mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said also to be underneath it.
  Mount Etna is one of the world's most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of activity.
context_section_description: Eruptions of Etna follow a variety of patterns. Most occur at the summit, where there are currently (as of 2019) five distinct craters – the Northeast Crater, the Voragine, the Bocca Nuova, and the Southeast Crater Complex (2). Other eruptions occur on the flanks, which have more than 300 vents ranging in size from small holes in the ground to large craters hundreds of metres across. Summit eruptions can be highly explosive and spectacular but rarely threaten the inhabited areas around the volcano. In contrast, flank eruptions can occur down to a few hundred metres altitude, close to or even well within the inhabited areas. Numerous villages and small towns lie around or on cones of past flank eruptions. Since the year AD 1600, at least 60 flank eruptions and countless summit eruptions have occurred; nearly half of these have happened since the start of the 20th century. Since 2000, Etna has had four flank eruptions – in 2001, 2002–2003, 2004–2005, and 2008–2009. Summit eruptions occurred in 2006, 2007–2008, January–April 2012, in July–October 2012 and again in December 2018.
  The first known record of eruption at Etna is that of Diodorus Siculus.
  In 396 BC, an eruption of Etna reportedly thwarted the Carthaginians in their attempt to advance on Syracuse during the Second Sicilian War.
  A particularly violent explosive (Plinian) summit eruption occurred in 122 BC, and caused heavy tephra falls to the southeast, including the town of Catania, where many roofs collapsed. To help with reconstruction after the devastating effects of the eruption, the Roman government exempted the population of Catania from paying taxes for ten years.
  The Roman poet Virgil gave what was probably a first-hand description of an eruption in the Aeneid.
  During the first 1500 years AD, many eruptions went unrecorded (or records have been lost); among the more significant are: (1) an eruption in about 1030 AD near Monte Ilice on the lower southeast flank, which produced a lava flow that travelled about 10 km, reaching the sea north of Acireale; the villages of Santa Tecla and Stazzo are built on the broad delta built by this lava flow into the sea; (2) an eruption in about 1160 (or 1224), from a fissure at only 350–450 m (1,148–1,476 ft) elevation on the south-southeast flank near the village of Mascalucia, whose lava flow reached the sea just to the north of Catania, in the area now occupied by the portion of the city named Ognina.
  Rabban Bar Sauma, a Chinese traveller to the West, recorded the eruption of Etna on 18 June 1287.
  The 1669 eruption, Etna's most destructive since 122 BC, started on 11 March 1669 and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank before reaching the city walls of the town of Catania five weeks later, on 15 April. The lava was largely diverted by these walls into the sea to the south of the city, filling the harbour of Catania. A small portion of lava eventually broke through a fragile section of the city walls on the western side of Catania and destroyed a few buildings before stopping in the rear of the Benedictine monastery, without reaching the centre of the town. Contrary to widespread reports of up to 15,000 (or even 20,000) human fatalities caused by the lava, contemporaneous accounts written both in Italian and English mention no deaths related to the 1669 eruption (but give very precise figures of the number of buildings destroyed, the area of cultivated land lost, and the economic damage). Therefore, it is uncertain where the enormous number of fatalities can be attributed. One possibility is confusion between this eruption and an earthquake that devastated southeast Sicily (including Catania) 24 years later in 1693. A study on the damage and fatalities caused by eruptions of Etna in historical times reveals that only 77 human deaths are attributable with certainty to eruptions of Etna, most recently in 1987 when two tourists were killed by a sudden explosion near the summit.
caption: An artist's impression of the 1766 eruption
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