Etna is active again - level 3
Europe’s tallest and most active volcano, Mount Etna, has erupted, sending a
vast plume of smoke and lava into the sky. The eruption did not cause significant
disruption, although airspace over the southern Italian island
of Sicily was briefly closed. Seismologists say the eruption was preceded
by 15 small earthquakes since Friday. This is the fourteenth time that Etna has erupted in 2013 and while the
volcano is almost constantly active, the last major eruption was in 1992. Whilst the eruptions themselves do not put the local population at risk, they
do have to live with the ash showers that follow. Difficult words: vast (extremely large),
plume (cloud), significant (large),
disruption (situation when something changes and it is not
good), seismologist (person who studies earthquakes – shaking
of the ground), precede (happen before something).