Mount Etna puffs giant smoke rings in ‘extraordinary’ phenomenon

Mount Etna is one of a handful of volcanoes around the world to produce the smoke rings

“The volcanic vortex rings form when gases rise up from deep below the earth and escape inside the crater of a volcano – Giuseppe Di Stefano/AP

The volcano has emitted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the spectacular rings since then, added Mr Behncke, who can see the volcano from his house in Tremestieri Etneo, near Catania.Locals have dubbed the volcano Lady of the Rings due to the circles of vapour it has been emitting.

“I thought I had hallucinations. I had never seen anything so spectacular and beautiful,” said Angela Intruglio, from Mascali, a town at the foot of Mount Etna that had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed completely in an eruption in 1928.