Fresco by Giacinto Platania depicting the 1669 eruption
Volcano
Mount Etna
Start date
11 March 1669[1]
End date
15 July 1669[1]
Type
Effusive eruption
Location
Southern flank of Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy
VEI
2–3[2]
The 1669 eruption of Mount Etna is the largest-recorded historical eruption of the volcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy. After several weeks of increasing seismic activity that damaged the town of Nicolosi and other settlements, an eruption fissure opened on the southeastern flank of Etna during the night of 10–11 March. Several more fissures became active during 11 March, erupting pyroclastics and tephra that fell over Sicily and accumulated to form the Monti Rossi scoria cone.
Lava disgorged from the eruption fissures flowed southwards away from the vent, burying a number of towns and farmland during March and April, eventually covering 37–40 square kilometres (14–15 sq mi). The inhabitants of the towns fled to the city of Catania and sought refuge there; religious ceremonies were held in the city to implore the end of the eruption. In early April a branch of the lava flow advanced towards the city and on the 1 or 16 April it reached its city walls, provoking a crisis and the flight of many of its inhabitants. The city walls held up the lava, which began to flow into the Ionian Sea. More than two weeks later, parts of the flow surmounted the walls and penetrated Catania but did not cause much damage. The eruption ended in July.
The first recorded attempt to divert a lava flow occurred when priest Diego Pappalardo and fifty others worked to break up a lava flow in an effort to divert it. The effort was initially successful but the diverted flow threatened another town whose inhabitants chased Pappalardo and his men away and the lava flow resumed its original course towards Catania. There are no known fatalities of the 1669 eruption but many towns, parts of Catania and farmland were destroyed by the lava flow and the earthquakes that accompanied the eruption. News of the eruption spread as far as North America and a number of contemporaries described the event, leading to an increased interest in Etna's volcanic activity.
^ abMulas et al. 2016, p. 117.
^Mulas et al. 2016, p. 130.
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