Italian rescue teams have sent water-carrying planes into the skies to try to stem rivers of boiling lava flowing from Mount Etna after a series of earthquakes awakened Europe's most active volcano.
While the snaking tongues of magma remained a safe distance from the several settlements on the mountain, fears were raised today after a fresh tremor measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale struck almost directly beneath the volcano.
At the weekend, Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology measured more than 100 small quakes measuring 1.1 to 3.5 on the Richter scale.
Residents of Linguaglossa, a popular ski town whose name means "big tongue of lava", nervously eyed the glowing rocks and boiling liquid streaming down the mountain.
"What can I say? Just look at it. My heart's bleeding," mayor Felice Stagnitta told reporters, as pine trees blazed behind him.
Ms Graziella Pappalardo wept on a friend's shoulder, as she realised her family restaurant "Racabo Refuge" up the mountain had been engulfed in lava.
"The emergency services are a mess, the lava has already arrived here, they're just a mess," she said, blinking back tears and trembling as Etna roared behind her.
The eruptions began in the early hours of yesterday, after several small earthquakes shook the eastern edge of Sicily and parts of mainland Italy. The epicentre was identified as just 1.5 km (one mile) southeast of the centre of Etna's crater.