(Eagle News) – The Department of Foreign Affairs said that no Filipino was reported affected by the eruption of Mount Etna and the more than 100 seismic quakes recorded in Sicily, Italy.
DFA Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato said that as of 11:45 p.m.of December 25, the DFA has not received any report of Filipinos who were affected by the quakes following Etna’s eruption.
The department continues to monitor the situation in Italy, where there are thousands of Filipinos residing in the area. There are around 2,320 Filipino nationals in Messina, 624 in Catania with more or less 5,000 residing in the whole of Sicily, the DFA said.
The Philippine Embassy in Rome said the Filipino community in Catania and Messina said that they were safe.
Etna is the most active volcano in Europe.
It erupted on Monday, spewing ash as several minor earthquakes hit the region, and prompting a partial closure of the Sicilian airspace around the mountain.
Italy’s national institute for geophysics and vulcanology (INGV) counted more than 130 seismic shocks in the zone, with the strongest reaching a magnitude of 4.0.
(with an Agence France Presse report)
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