Lava 1.5 miles from village

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 9

Lava 1.5 miles from village

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright)

CATANIA (Sicily), May 20.

A fiery wall of lava more than 60 feet high and about half a mile wide today continued to rumble slowly but terrifyingly towards villages on the lower slopes of Mount Etna.

Some of the inhabitants of the three most threatened villages—Sant’ Alfio, Fornazzo and Milo—are close to panic but the Italian Minister without Portfolio, Mr Giuseppe Lupis, yesterday sought to calm their fears.

After visiting the area —the lava is only 1.5 miles away from Sant’ Alfio—he issued a statement declaring: “The situation is under control and the population is quiet”

‘ “The damages are not huge, but they will be made good. There is no need for panic and the local authorities are equipped to deal with the situation.”

The Minister also asked tourists not to indulge in morbid curiosity, and not to

trample on people’s land. He said that one of the reasons police had set up road blocks to stop tourists coming near the area was because they were doing as much damage to vineyards and other plantations as the lava. The authorities have already announced that they will pay the cost of transferring all threatened inhabitants to safer housing and have drawn up emergency evacuation plans for the villages. So far at least 35 peasant cottages, six small summer villas and a big wine and fruit farm have been de-

strayed by the wall of lava, which is pouring at a rate uf over 600 feet an hour from a huge gash half-way up the volcano.

Some 345 acres of land, most of it cultivated, has been buried beneath the boiling volcanic rock, and one road has been destroyed over a two mile front.