Inside the popular island paradise that houses one of the world’s most active volcanoes

Stromboli is the most remote of Italy’s seven Aeolian Islands. But behind it’s azure blue waters and white sands, it houses a stunning attraction.

Nestled off the coast of Italy, surrounded by azure blue waters and white sandy beaches, the island of Stromboli is an Instagrammer’s dream paradise.

But sitting among the quiet island of 300 full-time residents, a constant ticking time bomb also calls the speck of land home.

For nearly 90 years, visitors and those who permanently live on Stromboli have become accustomed to the rumbles that disturb the 12sq m island framed by the Tyrrhenian Sea.

As the most remote of Italy’s seven Aeolian Islands, the deadly volcanic mountain rises 924m from the sea and extends more than 1000m below.

Stromboli is home to 300 full-time residents. Picture: Lionard Luxury Real Estate

Earlier this year, the inevitable happened. Two strong explosions, separated by 30 seconds, were recorded at Stromboli’s summit.

Residents and tourists on the island were evacuated, as lava spilt from all the active mouths of the crater terrace.

The explosion, which produced a two-kilometere high plume of smoke, proved just how deadly the popular attraction can be.

“It was like being in hell because of the rain of fire coming from the sky,” Stromboli priest Giovanni Longo told local media.

Smoke billows and flames above the hillside near house. Picture: Giovanni Isolino/AFP.

The explosion killed one hiker, 35-year-old Italian man Massimo Imes, and covered the popular tourist destination in ash.

Just two months later – the island was rocked again. This time, a “high intensity” blast that produced a pyroclastic flow – a fast-moving mixture of gas, rock and volcanic ash that stretched several hundred metres into the sea.

While no one was injured, video footage emerged showing a group of Italians fleeing the tiny island in panic as gigantic clouds of ash rolled across the sea.

Residents live below a ticking time bomb.

Experts believe the volcano on Stromboli, part of the Aeolian archipelago, has been in nearly continuous eruption for at least 2000 years, with incandescent lava, ash and volcanic rock regularly spewing from its cone.

But it’s the unknown that keep residents – and the thousands that frequent the island to capture a glimpse of the volcano – on edge.

As the volcano sits above, tourists lap up the sun on the beaches below.

The island attracts thousands of day-trippers each year, with tourists regularly climbing the three-hour hike to the volcano to watch lava fire up into the sky. It’s a stunning sight by day or night, but the past year has served as a deadly reminder of how quickly the fascination can turn fatal.

The island has become most well known for its spectacular incandescent night-time explosions that have long attracted visitors from all over the world and brought the volcano the nickname the “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean”.

A boat of tourists watches as lava from the Stromboli volcano flows into the sea. Picture: Giovanni Isolino/AFP.

Because of its constant activity, with records dating back 2000 years, the volcano is one of the most unique of its kind in the world enabling visitors the possibility to watch its eruptions. From the rim of an older crater one can stand only 150-250m almost directly above the active craters – a perfect viewing terrace to the red lava below.

With the most violent eruptions during the past 100 years happening in 1919 and 1930. In 2002, an eruption occurred for the first time in 17 years. Since then, further eruptions transpired in 2003, 2007 and 2014.

But despite its popularity with tourists, the island hasn’t always been so active with visitors and so sparse with permanent residents.

According to the BBC, in the early 1900s, around 4000 people lived on the island. But after a major eruption and consequent tsunami in 1930, the majority of the island’s residents departed for the US and Australia.

The island, sitting to the north of Sicily, is part of the Aeolian Island and is very popular with tourists. Picture: Rolf Haid

When the volcano began to erupt almost continuously a few years later, the population dwindled, and by the late 1940s only around 15 per cent of the island’s residents remained.

It wasn’t until 1950 when director Roberto Rossellini’s film Stromboli, starring Ingrid Bergman, put the island back on the map, drawing visitors once again.

Today, locals who call the island home take pride in living alongside the power of nature. BBC’s Anna Bressanin, who created the 2019 Elba Film Festival award-winning documentary, Island of Fire, showed that some even view the active mountain “like a friend”.

“He’s like a friend, like a person,” 12-year-old Federico D’Ambrosio said in the film.

But with two eruptions this year alone, more and more tourists are flocking to places like Stromboli to witness the powerful experience.

The stunning silhouette of Stromboli off Italy. Picture: Supplied

“Volcanoes are one of the forces of nature that truly are beyond human power to control: We can’t do anything about eruptions, other than get out of the way,” Amy Donovan, a geographer at the University of Cambridge, wrote for a paper published in December with the Royal Geographical Society.

According to Donovan, who focused her paper on the surge of volcano tourism in Iceland, most visitors are unprepared for these risky situations that could arise, which increases pressure on emergency services.

A tourist watching the volcano eruption at night at Stromboli in Italy.

In 2000, during the eruption of Iceland’s Hekla volcano, some tourists became stuck on the road after being cut off by lava because they had driven to the volcano to take a look.

Donovan said while people which are in the local area of a volcano need to be told about the danger from an eruption, sometimes an alarm can turn into a drawcard for thrillseekers wanting to be in the midst of the danger zone.