EXCLUSIVE Terrifying moment American tour group dodges Mt. Etna eruption after guide told them there was 'no danger'

Daily Mail​

4 days ago

An American tourist revealed the terrifying moment she was hiking on Mount Etna when the volcano erupted in a horrifying near-death experience.
Jamie Boone, from Washington DC, told DailyMail.com her dream vacation in Italy with her husband turned into a nightmare during their morning hike on Monday.
She said the volcano had been 'active all morning', but nobody had any idea it was set to erupt so violently, until footage Boone shared to social media showed a huge plume of smoke filled the skies after the eruption.
Boone was seen running with her fellow hikers as the volcano exploded and an avalanche of boiling rock was sent hurtling down the side of the mountain.
'That was when it got a little scary and we weren't sure how much danger we were in,' she said, describing the eruption as 'loud and explosive.'
'That's when our guide told us to run to get away,' she added.
'We were glad to have an experienced guide telling the others what to do, as some were going toward it.
'We were mid-mountain and that was scary, I can't imagine how it felt being at the top right by the crater. Our guide told us if it had collapsed outward instead of inward, we and a lot of others would have been in real trouble.'
Boone said their guide sprang into action when the volcano erupted, but officials did not stop hikers from going up the mountain beforehand.
'We were excited to see the activity and talking to our guide about how unique the experience was,' she said.
'Then the large eruption started, much louder and more explosive. That's when our guide told us to run to get away in case it shifted towards us.'
Boone was among dozens of tourists who were forced to run for their lives as a ginormous ash cloud filled the skies over the mountain.
Tourists are able to visit the 3,300m-high Mount Etna in guided tours or access certain areas independently.
A red aviation warning was briefly issued by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre Toulouse but has now turned to orange.
The most active volcano in Europe had been experiencing some activity in the last few hours with volcanic tremors felt overnight but has escalated to continuous 'explosions of growing intensity'.
The pyroclastic flow - an avalanche of burning ash careening down the slopes at a fast-pace and high-density - does not appear to have passed the edge of the Valley of the Lion, one of Etna's slopes.
The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Etnean Observatory, said the pyroclastic flow was 'probably produced by a collapse of material from the northern flank of the South-East Crater'.
A 'lava fountain' has also begun after the ash bomb, according to the institute.
The ominous ash cloud is said to mainly consist of water and sulfur dioxide and was 'drifting towards the south west'
The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said earlier this morning: 'Over the past few hours, the activity flagged in the previous statement issued at 4.14am (3.14am BST) has carried on with strombolian explosions of growing intensity that, at the moment, are of strong intensity and nearly continuous.
'Over the past few hours, the falling of a little thin ash has been flagged in the Piano Vetore area.'
The terrifying volcanic tremor began just after 10pm last night, reaching its peak three hours later at about 2.8km below the crater.
A livestream of the volcano captured the terrifying moment and users can watch the cloud descend over the island.
Activity has calmed in the last hour but the threatening grey cloud is still visible.
Mount Etna, located on the eastern coast of Sicily, is one of the most active volcanoes worldwide and has been going through an especially active period for the last five years.
Last summer, the volcano caused chaos at nearby airports as they were forced to limit and divert flights as pilots struggled with visibility.
A usually busy Catania airport had to send flights to other airports on the island, such as Palermo and Comiso.
Arriving flights were reduced to six per hour and one section of the airport was closed, while local towns were also covered in a blanket of black ash.
The 500,000-year-old volcano has been spewing lava during repeated outbursts in May before today's explosion.
Etna's most destructive eruption covered 14 villages and towns in lava flows and earthquakes from the volcano.
The eruption, which lasted several weeks, killed nearly 20,000 people, with thousands more made homeless, according to records from 1669.