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\n Smoke rises from the crater of the Etna volcano as it erupts, on Mount Etna near Catania, Italy, on Monday. A huge plume of ash, gas and rock spewed forth from Europe’s highest active volcano.
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Giuseppe Distefano\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Giuseppe Distefano\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Italy’s Mount Etna produced a spectacularly explosive eruption Monday morning, sending a ripple of reddish clouds down from its summit. The soaring ash rose to form a mushroom cloud high above Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano<\/a>, triggering a red alert for aviation crews in the region.<\/p>\n The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology’s Etna Observatory in Catania estimated the volcanic cloud’s height at about 21,325 feet. The massive ash cloud was moving in a west-southwest direction, according to the agency, known as INGV.<\/p>\n The dramatic scene at Etna’s southeast crater was caught on multiple webcams, spreading quickly across social media. As seen in a Weather Sicily webcam video<\/a>, the eruption rapidly grew from a few lava flows to cascades of boiling ash and smoke that rose into a large cloud.<\/p>\n