{"id":40655,"date":"2026-08-17T11:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/40655\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T11:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:54:13","slug":"american-killed-by-lightning-while-climbing-italian-volcano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/40655\/","title":{"rendered":"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"0\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">An American tourist has died after being struck by lightning while climbing the volcano Mount Etna in Italy on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"1\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The man, 30, was hiking in a restricted area of the volcano on Sunday evening, apparently in a bid to get closer to the summit, the local newspaper La Sicilia reported. He was then caught in a thunderstorm and struck by lightning. The identity of the man has not yet been released. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"2\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The emergency services were contacted shortly before 8 p.m. local time and firefighters reached the hiker by helicopter.<\/p>\n<p>Read More on News<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"4\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The man was taken to Cannizzaro Hospital in the city of Catania, but was pronounced dead in the emergency room at around 9.30 p.m. The man had been suffering from cardiac arrest, the newspaper Catania Today reported. <\/p>\n<p><img id=\"12330514\" alt=\"Lava flows from Mount Etna earlier this month.\" caption=\"Eruptive activity continues on Mount Etna, where lava flows continue to descend on the slopes of the volcano, as seen from Serracozzo near Catania, Italy, early Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo\/Simone Genovese)\" captionoverride=\"Lava flows from Mount Etna earlier this month.\" credit=\"Simone Genovese\/AP\" sourcealt=\"\" sourceimage=\"AP Photos\" sources=\"[]\" blockindex=\"5\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"8192\" height=\"5464\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;aspect-ratio:inherit;object-fit:cover\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP26223438519640.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"6\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The incident was the second fatal lightning strike that occurred in Italy on Sunday. An Italian man died after being struck while hiking on the Piz Starlex mountain in the Alps in the South Tyrol region, the authorities reported. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"7\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">Separately, four Spanish tourists were rescued from Italy&#8217;s Mount Colmegnone next to Lake Como on Sunday after they became stranded due a violent thunderstorm, the country&#8217;s ANSA news agency said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"8\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The rescue operation, which involved a fire brigade helicopter, was particularly challenging due to strong winds and heavy rain.<\/p>\n<p>Mount Etna Eruption <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"10\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">Mount Etna\u2014located on the Italian island of Sicily\u2014is Europe&#8217;s highest and most active volcano, and erupted between August 6 and 14 this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"13\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">The eruption caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights at Catania airport, which is located around 50 miles south of the volcano. The airport is Italy&#8217;s fifth-busiest by passenger traffic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"14\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\">An eruption was also recorded at the volcano in July at an altitude of around 3,000 meters. <\/p>\n<p><img id=\"12330835\" alt=\"Smoke billows from Mount Etna in 2019.\" caption=\"Smoke billows from Mount Etna volcano, the largest of Italy's three active volcanoes, near the Sicilian town of Catania, southern Italy, Saturday, July 20, 2019. (AP Photo\/Salvatore Allegra)\" captionoverride=\"Smoke billows from Mount Etna in 2019.\" credit=\"Salvatore Allegra\/AP\" sourcealt=\"\" sourceimage=\"AP Photos\" sources=\"[]\" blockindex=\"15\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"5145\" height=\"3170\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;aspect-ratio:inherit;object-fit:cover\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP19201320578079.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-module-scss-module__0ovlkG__blockParagraph\" blockindex=\"16\" articletitle=\"American Killed By Lightning While Climbing Italian Volcano\" id=\"artend_links\">This is a developing story. More to follow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An American tourist has died after being struck by lightning while climbing the volcano Mount Etna in Italy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7579,5,26692,1141,20950],"class_list":["post-40655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-death","tag-italy","tag-lightning","tag-sicily","tag-volcano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}