Mount Etna has erupted, prompting tourists and guides to literally run for their lives down the mountainside.
Harrowing footage has shown the moment the world’s most active stratovolcano erupted, to the surprise of dozens of people visiting the Sicilian landmark in Italy.
The tourists and guides appeared to get caught in the destructive path of the volcano, with the eruption sending huge plumes of gas, volcanic rock, also known as pyroclastic flow, and black ash some several kilometres into the air.
Those hiking on the side of the volcano were sent scrambling and sprinting to safety along its precarious ledge.
The first indicator of an eruption—tremors—were felt at around midnight on Sunday (June 1), before reaching a peak hours later and erupting at around 3.50am local time on Monday (June 2), reports The Independent.
There was a huge eruption from the Italian volcano on Monday (GIUSEPPE DISTEFANO/AFP via Getty Images)
While the activity died down by the early afternoon, its huge ash cloud was still visible from many nearby Italian villages and towns.
The incident prompted a ‘code red’ for aviation and air traffic control as the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre Toulouse (Vaac) said the ash cloud containing water and sulphur dioxide was a risk, having reached an altitude of around 6,400 meters, but has since been downgraded to an orange warning, The Standard reports.
Experts have since confirmed it was the most powerful eruption in four years.
“Such intense volcanic activity had not been recorded since February 2021,” Stefano Branca, director of the Etna Observatory in Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), told the news outlet.
The agency also said the volcano experienced some ‘growing intensity’ as the incident went on.
The view of the volcano from Catania, Italy (Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
The INGV said in a statement on Monday 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.”
As for the tourists seen fleeing for their lives, experts have said they would have likely been at a safe distance.
Volcanologist Dougal Jerram said tourists are generally allowed to go as far as the Valley of the Lion, which gives visitors ‘enough of a distance that even when the volcano has one of these explosive phases, you’re in a relatively safe distance from it, albeit, quite spectacular.’
“The good thing about the mountain guys is they’re all linked up with radios,” he added. “They know the terrain, they know the safety aspects.”
Devastating dashcam footage reveals the moment that a self-driving Tesla veered off the road and crashed into a tree.
Shared on Reddit by the driver, who had to be rescued from the vehicle by firefighters, it’s reported that the vehicle was in full self-drive (FSD) mode – one of Tesla’s more controversial features – when it veered off course.
Sharing the video, the Reddit user, @SynNightmare, explained that they were alone in the vehicle – a Tesla 2025 Model 3 on FSD version 13.2.8 – when it suddenly swerved into a tree.
The user explained they ‘felt lucky to be alive’ following the incident, which saw the car flip over in the ditch following the impact.
“[It was] just me [in the car], right after the truck passed the wheel started turning rapidly and the car drove into the ditch and the right passenger side swiped the tree and rolled over,” the driver told UNILAD.
“I was hanging upside down from the car seat and was watching blood drip down to the glass roof.
“I unbuckled my seatbelt sat on the middle fabric interior in complete shock until firefighters got me out of the car and put me on an stretcher and took me to the hospital.”
The footage has naturally alarmed other Tesla drivers, who were left confused over what had happened.
FSD is designed to use cameras and radar to navigate the vehicle autonomously.
Following the post, other drivers came to the conclusion that the crash could have occurred due to a shadow in the road being interpreted as an object.
The Tesla flips after hitting the tree (Reddit/SynNightmare)
One person wrote they had experienced ‘well-defined shadows, shallow water on part of the road, and new asphalt overlayments/repairs’ be interpreted by their Tesla’ FSD mode as ‘obstacles that need to be avoided’.
However, they added: “Important to note, however, and as others have commented elsewhere, that I’ve not seen this put a vehicle in danger, much less an accident – I’ve had FSD move halfway into an opposing lane to avoid a perceived upcoming obstacle (at highway speed), but only when there was no oncoming traffic in view (this was a water-on-road incident in east TX).”
Meanwhile another said: “Damn. Two days ago (I didn’t post the video) but my model x saw asphalt road change colors and it was a small patch maybe 6’ x 8’ at most. And it darted in to oncoming traffic lane. I took over. But I have seen a lot of these videos over the last couple weeks.”
People noted there were shadows on the road (Reddit/SynNightmare)
After many people requested more footage, the driver shared a series of different angles over on YouTube.
“It’s crazy it just flings itself off the road so fast before you can even react to what’s going on,” one commented.
A US oil tanker reportedly burst into flames after colliding with a ship off the coast of England this morning, leaving at least 32 casualties.
A major maritime rescue mission is currently underway in the North Sea just off the East Yorkshire coast in the UK after two vessels, including one reportedly carrying jet fuel, collided earlier this morning.
HM Coastguard told the BBC that the incident occurred near the Humber Estuary, with the alarm raised around 9.48am today (Monday, March 10).
Oil tanker bursts into flames after colliding with cargo ship leaving at least 32 casualties (@Tessaronnews/Twitter)
It is believed the crash involves the US-flagged Stena Immaculate, that was anchored off the Humber Estuary after having travelled from Greece, and the Portuguese-flagged container ship, MV Solong, that had been travelling from Scotland to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the news outlet reports.
It is believed the oil tanker carrying the highly flammable substance was stationary when the Solong collided with it.
The Stena Immaculate (VesselFinder)
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Grimsby East, confirmed 13 casualties were initially brought to shore, followed by another 10 on a harbour pilot boat and a further nine in another rescue.
Both vessels are reportedly still burning in the blaze while several crew members remain unaccounted for after fleeing into the waters to avoid its ‘massive fire ball.’
Crew have apparently abandoned the ship after there was a ‘massive fireball’ (Twitter/@TheSecretFF999)
The RNLI said there had been reports of people abandoning the vessels to get away from the flames, and audio footage of the emergency calls further reveals crew had make the decisions to abandon the ships.
In the call, the distressed caller says: “Solong collided with tanker Stena Immaculate. Both vessels are abandoning,” as per The Sun.
“Vessels who have firefighting equipment or who can assist with search and rescue, contact Humber Coastguard on [radio] channel 16.
“Vessel Stena Immaculate is carrying Jet A1 fuel, which is on fire and in the water. Request vessels remain at a safe distance.”
It is believed the container ship crashed into the oil tanker (VesselFinder)
Boyers added: “It’s too far out for us to see – about 10 miles – but we have seen the vessels bringing them in.
“They must have sent a mayday out – luckily there was a crew transfer vessel out there already.
“Since then there has been a flotilla of ambulances to pick up anyone they can find.”
The condition of the casualties currently remain unclear.
A spokesperson for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch also told the BBC: “The Marine Accident Investigation Branch has deployed a team to Grimsby following the collision of the Portuguese registered container ship Solong and the US registered oil tanker Stena Immaculate which collided in the North Sea this morning.
“Our team of inspectors and support staff are gathering evidence and undertaking a preliminary assessment of the accident to determine our next steps.”
Warning: The content in this article may be distressing to some readers.
A horrifying video shows cruise ship tourists running for their lives from a volcano that killed 22 people.
The never-before-seen-footage has captured the precise moment the tourists realized a volcanic eruption was taking place right next to them from the top of Whakaari’s crater in New Zealand.
Recorded on 9 December, 2019, the clip shows a group of about 18 passengers and guides watching the gray smoke rise before fleeing the scene screaming ‘Run, run run!’. Take a look:
The volcano, located on White Island – once a popular sightseeing spot – went on to take the lives of nearly two dozen people – 17 of which were from Australia, while three were from the United States and the remaining two hailed from New Zealand.
Tourists have not been back to the once-popular destination ever since.
People can be seen screaming, running and hiding behind rocks as Whakaari begins to erupt.
Earlier this week (11 July), marked the first day of what is anticipated to be 16-week criminal trial of three tourism companies and three directors who have been charged with safety breaches following the tragedy.
Auckland District Court
The trial heard that the volcano had showed indications of unrest weeks before the fatal eruption in the winter of 2019.
The volcano was rated at Volcanic Alert Level 2 at the time of the disaster which has been defined by ‘moderate to heightened volcanic unrest’.
If found guilty at the end of the trial, expected to last four months, all six parties could end up facing fines of up to NZ$1.5m (around $945,900).
The video in question is just one of many to be released during the trial after subsequently being recovered from the victims’ devices.
Auckland District Court
On top of the 22 deaths, only 25 people escaped from the disaster but were left injured after suffering from severe burns.
One of the tourists who made it off the island, 35-year-old Lauren Urey, from the US, told the court she was certain she and her new husband were going to die.
Speaking to the court on Wednesday (12 July), she said: “He was just screaming in agony. I’ve never heard him scream like that before. I remember he said he was sorry.”
Urey continued: “I remember me screaming in agony. My body was sizzling. I said, ‘I Iove you so much. I’m going to die today’.
“I was positive we were going to die and if were we going to die, I wanted to be next to him.”
Video footage shows the differences between tap water in the US and that in the UK, and it makes for some pretty horrifying viewing.
Our image of Medieval towns drinking beer because the water was dirty might be a myth, but water like we have it today is a far cry from even the Medieval towns which did have piped water systems.
A vast amount of infrastructure and technology goes into us simply being able to turn a handle and access clean drinking water, one of the front lines against disease.
Are you a tap water drinker? (Getty Stock Image)
However, as a video posted to TikTok shows, ‘safe for drinking’ definitely does not mean ‘completely devoid of life’.
Placing a sample of tap water from the US and the UK under a microscope revealed the surprising number of microscopic organisms which make a home in the tap water.
Now to be clear, if you tried to get through life without ever consuming a micro-organism you would probably die of thirst.
However, there are some bugs which most definitely should not be tolerated in a water supply.
Poor water quality can lead to the spread of diseases such as cholera, polio, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and diarrhoea, among many others.
Taking water samples to monitor what microorganisms are present in the water supply is an important part of ensuring it’s safe, and it’s also very interesting to see.
In the case of this video, I should caveat that I have zero qualification in microbiology so my analysis of the creatures here will reflect that.
The video kicks off with the sample from the USA.
Look at that! You could saddle it up and ride it into town! (TikTok/@microscope.vision)
This has a smaller number of bugs floating around in the water, but the ones that are there look as though they are more advanced.
There are some with appendages, which look large enough to be going after their (even) smaller counterparts in the water.
Disturbingly, a couple of them even look distinctly like worms.
As for the UK sample, the critters floating round appear to be much smaller, but there’s also a lot more of them.
Again, I’m no microbiologist so I have absolutely no idea if any of these creatures are harmful to us, or something which doesn’t hurt us and isn’t worth expanding the resources to get rid of.
The UK had a lot more critters, but seemingly smaller and simpler. (TikTok/@microscope.vision)
Both the US and UK have clean drinking water universally available.
However, in recent months, the UK water board has been mired by a series of scandals after it emerged that raw sewage has being pumped into rivers and the sea around the UK.
In June and July 2024, residents of the town of Brixham in the South West were advised to boil their tap water before drinking it for some 54 days following a parasite outbreak.
