WATCH | Mount Etna erupts sending people running for their lives

Mount Etna in Sicily erupted on Monday morning, sending people running for their lives as a huge cloud of ash rose overhead.

Footage shared on social media shows people fleeing to safety after Europe's highest active volcano started erupting.

In a statement, Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said that volcanic activity flagged in a previous statement issued at 4.14am local time has “carried on with Strombolian explosions of growing intensity that, at the moment, are of strong intensity and nearly continuous”.

“Over the past few hours, the falling of a little thin ash has been flagged in the Piano Vetore area,” the institute added.

It said its forecast model expected the erupting ash cloud to scatter in a south-west direction. The institute warned that the “values of the magnitude of the tremor are currently elevated with a tendency to increase further”.

Thermal imaging of Mount Etna, shared by the institute this morning, shows “hot pyroclastic material”, meaning a fast-moving current of rock fragments, gas, and ash, flowing down the volcano.

In a statement shared at 11:55am time, the INGV said the volcanic flow did “not appear to have crossed the edge” of the Valley of the Lion, surrounding the volcano.