More than 20,000 people were killed after Mount Etna erupted in Sicily.
Tragically the nearby residents mostly ignored recommendations a few days earlier to relocate as they thought they could try and save their city.
On March 8, 1669, Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily in modern-day Italy, begins rumbling. Multiple eruptions over the next few weeks killed more than 20,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Most of the victims could have saved themselves by fleeing, but stayed, in a vain attempt to save their city.