MILAN —

A massive eruption at Mount Etna forced tourists to flee the volcano on Monday after a plume of high temperature gases, ash and rock “several kilometers high” billowed into the air above them, Italian authorities said.

Footage posted on social media shows long lines of people hurrying downhill away from the explosion while the owner of one tour company told CNN they had 40 people on the Sicilian volcano when it erupted. Advertisement

The volcano on the Italian island of Sicily is a popular tourist destination visited by 1.5 million people a year, many of whom trek almost all the way to its summit.

Although Mount Etna is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, there hasn’t been an eruption of this magnitude since 2014, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Vol

See Full Page