’Quake near volcano

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 9

’Quake near volcano

(NZ P A -Reuter—Copyright) ] CATANIA (Sicily), April 22. ' Several people were 1 slightly hurt and several houses and a church were badly damaged in the village of Macchia di Giarre, when a severe earth tremor shook part of eastern Sicily last night- . , . The tremor was felt in Catania, in the shadow of Mount Etna, which was belching red-hot stones and lava in its worst eruption for 10 years. Twenty five miles to the north, the earthquake cracked walls in several villages, sent inhabitants

running into the streets, and brought down chunks of masonry from large buildings. The worst-hit village was Macchia di Giarre, from where almost the entire population fled into the surrounding hills. Mount Etna had burst into a violent eruption which cut the cableway up the two-mile-high volcano. A new river of lava flaming at 1000 degrees centigrade destroyed a lOOft-high i iron and reinforced cement i pylon as if it were a matchl stick. il Explosions every few

seconds hurled huge chunks of burning rock 600 feet into the air above the snow-

capped cone. Heavy flows of lava had been pouring down the mountainside for two-thirds of a mile for several weeks, one being calculated at 30 feet deep. However, vulcanologists say that in spite of the violence of the latest eruption, there is still no immediate danger to the touristcrowded towns nestling at the foot of the mountain’s slope and along Sicily’s east coast.