Stromboli volcano (Italy): intense activity during the night, very strong explosion, lava flows reach the sea

Yesterday evening, activity at the volcano increased again significantly (after having dropped a bit during after the paroxysm on Wed 28 Aug):
First, a lava flow from the NE vent area began again to descend onto the upper Sciara after around 21:35 local time. Then, at at 22h43:41 local time, a very strong explosion occurred, characterized as "major" - this classification meaning it is much stronger than average, but still significantly weaker than the 3 July or 28 Aug paroxysms. It originated from the central / SW crater area and had been preceded by significant rapid ground inflation during the 2 minutes before.
Following the explosion, overall activity at the volcano remained very high, with near-constant strong lava spattering, lava overflows and intermittent strong stormbolian explosions from various vents.
The lava flow described above increased strongly after the 22:43 explosion and reached about half-way down the slope, but later decreased and mostly ceased by around midnight - watch video:

At 03:46 local time, another strong eruption occurred from the SW vent(s), and a new lava flow started to descend on the southern Sciara, eventually reaching the sea around 04:40 where it was active in the early morning for a few hours time (until approx. 07:00) before decreasing and stopping again.

After the surge in activity during the night, when tremor and deformation had reached high levels, activity gradually decreased during the morning hours to remain at levels closer to the average of the past weeks (still very high).