Overall Green Volcanic eruption for Etna
in Italy

Event summary

GREEN alert: The Etna Volcanic eruption may have a low humanitarian impact, based on the magnitude of the eruption, the exposed population and its coping capacity..

GDACS ID VO 1000071
Name: Etna (211060)
Lat/Lon: 37.75 , 15
Event Date: 21 May 2023 UTC
Exposed Population 30km: About 940000 people within 30km
Exposed Population 100km: About 2750000 people within 100km
Max Volc. Explosivity Index VEI: 5
Population Exposure Index PEI: 5
Inserted at: 22 May 2023 06:08 UTC

GDACS Score

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Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
Italy - Volcano eruption (ECHO 22 May 2023)Mon, 22 May 2023 11:36

  • On 18 May, a new explosive activity started at the summit of the craters of Mount Etna (eastern Sicily Region, southern Italy) as registered by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
  • On 21 May the personnel of INGV on the field observed ashfall across Adrano Village, a town located in the Metropolitan City of Catania.
  • According to media, the ash fall was also reported in Biancavilla village and Catania City leading to the closure of the Catania airport until 22 May at 7.00 UTC.
  • Following the latest bulletins of INGV, as of 22 May, a lava flow is observed from the South East Crater, and no more explosions with associated ash fall have been recorded.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2026. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

Updates on volcanic activity (Smithsonian)

The Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report provides information about global volcanism on a weekly basis. Latest Etna report has been published on 17 May 2023 08:34.
INGV reported that an explosion at Etna?s SE Crater occurred at 0839 on 14 May and produced an ash emission that rapidly dispersed around the summit area. The Aviation Color Code was raised to Yellow at 0902 and then lowered back to Green at 1830 on 14 May. No significant variations in the seismic data were associated with the explosion. Source: Sezione di Catania - Osservatorio Etneo (INGV)
See the detail here

Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (31), INGV (2), WMO (1), INFORM (2), (1), JSR (1),