Informant38

Scientists said they had recorded a series of tremors around Etna yesterday measuring up to 3.2 on the Richter scale, but they were nonetheless upbeat.

"Etna is stable and the situation is under control," civil protection official Luca Spoletini said. "But that doesn't mean we are letting down our guard.

"We still have to make sure that the 1,000 or so people who have been left without homes are comfortable for now."

Hundreds of firefighters, rescue workers and military troops struggled around the clock to attend to the residents, put out forest fires with water planes and divert the streams of lava.

Rescue workers in Linguaglossa, a ski town about 8km from the biggest lava flow, said they were still on alert.

Continuing a decades-old tradition, Linguaglossa residents have paraded a statue of their patron saint from the town's church to the train station and left it there to ward off danger.