A group of Trinity College graduates were among tourists caught up in chaos in Sicily as Mount Etna erupted on Monday.
Seven chemistry and two geography graduates were on holiday together, celebrating the end of their final-year exams.
They were taking part in a guided tour of the volcano on the Italian island on Monday morning, when sounds “like strong thunder or jet engines” were heard.
“We thought it was planes flying overhead at first,” Alex Stoian (22), who was travelling with the group, said.
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The students had booked a tour of the volcano the night before and had just got off the tour bus “at around 11.20am” when the volcano erupted.
“It was a nice sunny day. Smoke was a bit darker than usual, but nothing crazy,” he said. Minutes after leaving the bus, however, panic ensued.
Anna (23), who did not wish to give her surname, said: “The smoke cloud was getting bigger and coming towards us. Once the panic struck, it was all very chaotic and everyone started running”.
There were “four or five” buses parked together on the mountain, causing some confusion among the tourists.
In the commotion, Mr Stoian was briefly separated from his friends.
“I couldn’t see any of my friends ... I tried to get on three separate buses,” he said. “I remember having a thought of ‘If I die, I’d like to be with my friends’.”
The group reconvened on their designated vehicle, where they say they spent an anxiety-ridden 10 minutes waiting for the bus to depart.
“A lot of us were trying to call our families. There was very bad reception up there,” Mr Stoian said.
Another member of the party got through to her brother, who “told me to put a wet cloth over my mouth to stop the gas from getting in”.
“You felt it [the smoke] in the back of your throat,” he said, also expressing concern at the lack of masks on the bus. “That was a sore point ... I would have expected them to have some kit.”
They were transported to a “safer spot down the mountain” where they were “kept in the dark for 30 minutes”.
At this stage, “everyone was feeling very anxious and angsty,” Mr Stoian said. “It got very Lord of the Flies.”
Anna recalled the relief when the guides told the group they were not endangered by the explosion and flow of volcanic matter and gas in the valley.
“We felt safe and assured once they informed us what was going on. It all calmed down then,” she said.
The pair said they were now “taking it easy” and relaxing for the rest of their holiday. Most of the group are due to return home tomorrow.
At 3,330 metres high, Mount Etna is Europe’s tallest active volcano and a popular attraction for tourists.
Sicily welcomes millions of visitors annually, with more than one million visiting Mount Etna alone.
