STROMBOLI ERUPTION
LAVA FLOWS TO THE SEA. MOST IMPRESSIVE SIGHT. Stromboli, the island volcano between Messina and the mainland, was in full eruption all day Wednesday. June 1 and made an impressive sight. Passing ships were slowed down so that their crews could admire the picture of the volcano throwing up fire, ashes, and a river of lava from a height of 2700 ft. Sailors of the south call it their lighthouse, but on the night of June 1 it was a flaming torch. The eruption began late on the previous Sunday afternoon, but only the staff of the Geophysical Institute in Messinawere aware of the fact. The Italian Government offered to take the inhabitants, numbering about 1800 fishedmen and their families, off the island, but they refused to move. They said that as the eruption started on the easterly slopes, called Sciara del Fuoco, there could be no danger either to their vineyards or cottages or to themselves. The volcano on the night of June 1 gave the impression that the whole cone of Stromboli mountain was on fire and that the inhabitants must be swallowed up. But as the track of the fire was one side and the eruption was confined to the slope that runs into the sea, visitors who were watching from all kinds of craft could enjoy one of the greatest thrills of the world in perfect safety.
The lava, bright red, but merely peat colour, with patches of fire, in daytime, crept slowly down to the sea. It looked like a prehistoric monster with its tail endlessly' emerging from the top of the mountain. Its long, ser-■, pen tine body was occasionally severed by deafening exxplosions. These were frequently followed by the throwing up of black blocks of lava the size of Cottages. ?,’<
As this slow-moving carcass dipped into the sea a tremendous hissing emerged, followed by . fountains of steam, which rose violently. Then great clouds of smoke and ashes were thrown into the heated air. Each block of moving lava slipped into the water like a great mass of stone and sank.
Climbers were forbidden to go up the mountain until danger had passed.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 5
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361STROMBOLI ERUPTION Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 5
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