Volcano erupts on Italian island popular with tourists, killing hiker on mountainside

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An Italian hiker from Milazzo was killed on Wednesday as a volcano on the island of Stromboli erupted.

According to fire brigade commander Giuseppe Biffarella, the eruption injured another hiker on the side of the mountain, throwing ash high into the sky and wrapping the popular tourist destination in smoke.

Rescue services said the eruption started fires on the western side of the island, drawing in fire crews from nearby Salerno and Catania.

“We have reports of several fires caused by the violent explosion,” said Biffarella. “We have already organized, for that of our competence, the mechanism of rescue with firefighters sent with the coast guard and a helicopter.”

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Michela Favorito, a hotel worker near Fico Grande on the east side of the island, said she saw the explosion from the hotel. “We plugged our ears and after this a cloud of ash swept over us… The whole sky is full of ash, a fairly large cloud.”

Smoke billows from the volcano on the Italian island of Stromboli, Wednesday, July 3, 2019. The news agency ANSA says that some 30 tourists jumped into the sea out of fear after a series of volcano erupted on the Sicilian island of Stromboli. Civil protection authorities said a hiker was confirmed killed by the eruptions Wednesday. (ANSA VIA AP)

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Fiona Carter, a British tourist on the nearby island of Panarea, said she heard the blast from 17 miles away.

“We turned around to see a mushroom cloud coming from Stromboli,” she said. “Then red hot lava started running down the mountain toward the little village of Ginostra.”

As the smoke clouded Stromboli, Carter added that several boats set off for the little island to provide aid.

Stefano Branca of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said the eruption was paroxysmal, meaning the eruption occurs when high-pressure magma explodes from a shallow, underground reservoir. Such eruptions “are events of great intensity and [are] quite rare,” he said.

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Tourists often climb to the 3,000-foot summit of the mountain to peer into the volcano’s crater, although it was not clear if anyone was on the crater at the time of the blast.

Stromboli is one of the most active volcanoes on the planet and has been erupting almost continuously since 1932, according to Geology.com.

Fox News' Morgan Cheung and Reuters contributed to this report.