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Thousands have clambered to see the dramatic eruptions of Mount Etna, but all the commotion is causing problems for local emergency services.
Mount Etna is currently erupting in Sicily, offering plenty of dramatic moments that make for ideal photographs.
However, while it may be perfect for images, the huge surge in tourists and onlookers has caused problems for local emergency services. Some people are reportedly blocking streets and authorities are concerned.
Sicily’s head of regional civil protection, Salvo Cocina, has said that the explosive tourism surrounding the mountain is ‘extremely dangerous’ and ‘wild’. They have warned that visitors are currently clogging narrow streets with parked cars, preventing rescue vehicles from travelling around the area.
In a Facebook post, Cocina stated that traffic had reached a ‘standstill’, highlighting that nightfall is compounding the severity of the situation. ‘There is a risk of falls and people sinking into the snow,’ he said.
It appears these warnings were not just empty paranoia, either. Eight people got lost during an excursion on Monday and were located after several hours passed. A man suffered a fractured foot from falling and four others also went missing the night before.
The busyness has gotten so out of hand that firefighters have had to be brought in to assist locals and control the flow of tourism. Visitors have been ordered to stay at least 500 metres away from the lava, an instruction that has been completely ignored.
Social media has been ablaze with clips of tourists approaching lava flows and staying extremely close to them.
Carlo Caputo, the mayor of nearby town Belpasso, says that while these videos are ‘visually striking’, filming them is exposing tourists to ‘serious risks’. This is because the lava instantly evaporates when interacting with the snow. The thermal energy that is released may ‘violently hurl fragments of rock’.
Overtourism is a hot topic across Europe. Just last year, Spain saw several public protests against tourists entering the country. Beginning in the Canary Islands in April 2024, residents took part in a hunger strike in an attempt to halt two major tourism projects.
Similarly, Italy has been experiencing large swathes of tourists overwhelming its facilities – not just in Sicily. A popular Italian ski resort called Roccaraso considered bringing in the army to deal with a surge of day tourists coming from Naples recently.
Social media platforms such as TikTok have been causing changes to tourist behaviours in the last few years. Many specific areas, food shops, ski resorts, or other holiday venues enjoy a viral marketing moment online that propels them to the forefront of travel recommendation guides extremely quickly.
