Volcano rocked by quakes

Rocked by two earthquakes five minutes apart, frightened people today raced out of their homes on Mount Etna’s slopes, where a thick river of lava was threatening a refuge for hikers.

“The shaking was violent, the walls shook for what seemed like an infinitely long time,” Enrico Pappalardo, mayor of Santa Venerina, one of Etna’s towns, told the Italian news agency ANSA.