Mt. Etna in Sicily on August 10, 2011; photo by Lolorenzo64/flickr
I thought I loved volcanos — I’ve helicoptered over a bubbling Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii on my honeymoon, hiked over a hissing Nea Kameni in Santorini and gotten close enough to hear the boulders rumbling down Mt. Arenal in Costa Rica.
But as I hear about Sicily’s erupting Mt. Etna, which has already exploded six times in the past month, I don’t envy those who are near by. I think I prefer my volcanoes a little more dormant, thank you, when I’m in close proximity. It probably hot enough at the Sicilian beaches without the fresh lava. The whole situation looks a little too smoky for my taste, and let’s not forget about the stress of cancelled flights.
I’m nowhere near Sicily at the moment, so I turned to social media to get my volcano fix at a very safe distance. I used Storify, which is a very cool tool that lets you search for, curate and compile photos, links and comments from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and more. Started by an Associated Press foreign correspondent, Storify is sure making my foreign reporting easier!
I’ve never even heard of that. It’s awesome!
Etna is always good for a visit, but thanks for the reminder and the great links.
Oh that Storify looks good! Gonna check it out tout de suite!
Just think Pompeii. That’s enough to keep me away.
Oh wow – I had no idea this was happening. We’re in Europe at the moment and had originally planned to visit Sicily this year but had to cut out Italy entirely due to time constraints. Sicily is one of the places I was dying to see – hope it’s all ok!
Don’t worry — Sicily is still safe to visit. I don’t believe that the eruptions have caused any real damage. The smoke must have some kind of an effect on the air quality though. So far, the airport has only had to shut down once, so that’s good. There were initial fears that an ash cloud would cause mass flight disruptions a la Iceland, but so far, so good.