ITALY: Why would anyone want to live at the foot of volcanic Mount Etna in Sicily? Given the week of earthquake devastation just experienced by Italy, the question is all the more topical.
After all, 10,200 ft Etna is given not just to periodic volcanic eruptions but also to equally periodic earthquakes, often in the immediate aftermath of the eruptions.
On Tuesday of last week, for instance, after three days of violent eruptions, the area surrounding Europe's most active volcano was struck by an earthquake which registered 4.4 on the Richter scale and left approximately 1,000 people homeless, but caused no deaths.
By comparison, the earthquake which killed 29 people in the little Molise village of San Giuliano di Puglia last Thursday measured 5.4 on the Richter scale and left probably more than 8,000 people homeless.
Ironically, however, with the exception of the accursed village schoolhouse in San Giuliano, most of the buildings in the Molise region survived the tremors rather better than those in villages such as Santa Venerina at the foot of Etna, where, remarkably, many new houses were almost certainly built without reference to anti-seismic criteria.
By and large, the people of the Etna region (they proudly call themselves Etnei) stay put. What is more, they tend to have an affectionate relationship with a' muntagna, as they call Etna. The visitor to the region will often be told that despite everything, "la montagna è buouna", literally the mountain is good.
Notwithstanding a track record of earthquakes and eruptions going back at least to 141 BC (when 40 people were reportedly killed), the Etnei are symbiotically bound to a' muntagna.
Not only is theirs a savagely beautiful landscape but, thanks to the volcano, the area is extremely fertile (producing excellent oranges, lemons, mandarins and wines), a major tourist attraction and winter sports resort.
Volcanologist Boris Behncke claims that only 13 people have been killed by Etna eruptions in the last century. Ironically, 11 of those were tourists who had climbed to the top of the volcanic crater in September 1979 and April 1987, being hit by the sort of unpredictable explosions which occur in so-called "quiet" periods between major cycles of magmatic activity.
Good luck or divine intervention may explain why we have seen nothing like the earthquakes of 1169 and 1669 which reportedly cost the lives of 15,000 and 20,000 people respectively.
Given that earthquakes and eruptions often seem to be linked, it is ominous to note that some experts such as Behncke believe Etna has now entered a phase of increased activity. Since 1977, more than 170 short-lived eruptions (known in the trade as paroxysms) have been recorded as compared with fewer than 50 between 1900 and 1977.
Not that the spectacular eruption (shooting fountains of fiery molten lava more than 100 feet into the air) and subsequent lava flow do not inflict their own type of damage. Trees, all manner of vegetation and any buildings rashly placed high up the mountain side were all gobbled up last week by the huge, black serpent-like lava flow that trundled along ever more slowly as it descended.
By Wednesday, the major flow was covering 70 metres in 12 hours - hardly hurtling along. At a distance, the lava flow can even look relatively harmless. As you get close, the intense heat and the smell of sulphur indicate otherwise. Pick up a stick and throw it on the hard outer crust of the lava and you get a real idea of the dangerous nature of the beast. Almost as it hits the lava, the stick explodes into flame with a little bang.
This week, the lava flow destroyed the 32-room Hotel Betuile and adjacent ski-lifts, part of a ski-complex. Ironically, a similar hotel in almost the same spot had been wiped out by lava flow in 1985, only to be immediately rebuilt, albeit without the approval of the Etna Park Regional authority.
This week, the Etnei are rebuilding again. Various Mafia-related companies, attracted by the state funds sure to be made available for the reconstruction programme, will doubtless muscle in on some of the contracts. (Organised crime remains a much more serious problem for the Etna area, close to Catania, than the periodic rumblings of a' muntagna.)
Despite the Mafia, the eruptions, the lava flows and the earthquakes, however, few Etnei are likely to be persuaded that the time has come to consider moving elsewhere.