Italian emergency services confirmed on Monday that a 29‑year‑old man from Kansas lost his life after being struck by lightning while walking on the eastern flank of Mount Etna.
The victim was discovered at roughly 4,600 feet in the Rocca Capra area. A helicopter crew retrieved him and flew him to a nearby hospital, where medical staff later pronounced him dead. His name has not been released while relatives are being notified.
Mount Etna’s authorities had already barred hikers from parts of the volcano’s slope because of sustained volcanic activity. The same activity prompted the closure of Catania airport for most of the previous week; flights were diverted to alternative airports before the airport reopened on Saturday after the alert level was lowered.
Officials highlighted that, in recent decades, lightning strikes have caused more fatalities on Etna than eruptions themselves. The last death directly linked to an eruption occurred in 1987.
The volcano, Europe’s most active, entered its 14th eruptive phase in recent months. In June, a plume of smoke and ash rose several kilometres, but authorities said the event posed no threat to residents. The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) explained that the display resulted from a collapse of part of the southeast crater, which generated hot lava flows.
Local officials have repeatedly urged visitors to refrain from crowding the mountain to watch eruptions. In February 2025 they asked tourists to stop flocking to Etna, yet many still climbed the Sicilian slopes to view substantial lava streams cutting through deep snow. Sicily’s head of regional civil protection, Salvo Cocina, later noted on Facebook that narrow streets leading to the volcano were jammed with parked cars and traffic, making it almost impossible for emergency vehicles to reach the site.
This incident was first reported by The Associated Press.