Mount Etna has started blowing ash from one of its main craters but the latest bout of activity should not endanger local residents, experts said Friday.
The spectacular, 5,000m-high plume of ash could be seen for miles around.
Ash from the south-west crater, which first started showing renewed signs of life in October, was spraying the countryside, local towns and the nearby city of Catania.
Catania residents were using umbrellas, hats and other methods to keep the black ash out of their faces.
Catania Airport has so far been unscathed but has been placed on alert because the volcanic cloud will become 'invisible' when night falls.
Civil Defence chief Guido Bertolaso has flown to the area to keep a closer eye on the situation.
So far there has been no trace of magma in the particles that have fallen to earth, experts said.
The edges of the south-west crater started to crumble in late October and soon after the crater started belching black smoke.
Meanwhile flows of lava from fissures that opened up on the volcano's eastern flank last month were continuing to stop at high altitude, the experts said.
The eruption has given little cause for concern unlike other recent reawakenings of Europe's most active volcano.
In October 2002, Etna was rocked by a series of tremors and minor eruptions which damaged buildings and left 1,000 people temporarily homeless.
But its last bout of serious volcanic activity was in the summer of 2001.
The eruptions made international headlines as parts of an important ski resort, the Rifugio Sapienza, were engulfed and the town of Nicolosi was threatened with a similar fate.
Viewers around the world were also held spellbound by the beauty of the spectacle, which experts said was one of the most unusual and complex eruptions in three centuries.
The volcano's last major eruption was in 1992, when the Italian military had to use controlled explosions to divert lava away from the town of Zafferana on the mountain's lower slopes.
