Travel specialists share on-the-ground advice following Mount Etna's latest eruption, including flight delays, hiking advisories, and more.

Sicily’s Mount Etna erupted on Monday, producing an enormous ash cloud “several kilometers high.” The eruption began at 11:24 a.m. local time, according to reports. Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology warned of “almost continuous” explosions that were of “increasing intensity” caused by a section of Etna’s southeast crater crumbling.

From downtown Catania to coastal viewpoints across Sicily, locals and visitors watched as the ash plume stretched more than four miles into the sky. A red aviation warning was briefly issued as volcanic tremors. They persisted overnight, building to what experts called “explosions of growing intensity.”