Devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake &amp; tsunami in southern Italy
A devastating earthquake occurred on 28 December 1908 in Sicily and Calabria, southern Italy with a moment magnitude of 7.1 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI ("Extreme"). The epicentre was in the Strait of Messina which separates Sicily from the Italian mainland. The cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria were almost completely destroyed and between 75,000 and 82,000 people died, making it the deadliest earthquake in the history of Europe.
Cause of the earthquake.
According to Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, the earthquake was caused by a large, low-angle SE-dipping, blind normal fault, lying mainly offshore in the Strait of Messina, between plates. Its upper projection intersects the Earth's surface on the western, Sicilian side of the Strait. In 2019 researchers at Birkbeck, University of London discovered the active fault responsible for the earthquake. The study, led by Marco Meschis, identified the fault as the previously mapped but little studied Messina-Taormina Fault which lies off the Sicilian coast and runs the length of the Strait of Messina. The team used data from 1907–1908 to examine the pattern of uplifts and subsidence observed in the Messina and Calabria area which bore a strong resemblance to those resulting from other powerful earthquakes triggered by normal faults. After comparing the direction and size of movements on well-known faults with the surface movements seen in Messina and Calabria, the researchers identified the probable active fault which caused the catastrophic earthquake as well as the direction and size of the movements.
Italy sits along the boundary zone of the African plate, and this plate is pushing against the sea floor underneath Europe at a rate of 25 millimeters (1 inch) per year. This causes vertical displacement, which can cause earthquakes. The earthquake was recorded by 110 seismographic stations around the world, and was one of the first to be recorded by instruments.
The Strait of Messina is part of the regional tectonic feature known as the Calabrian Arc, an area of differential uplift deriving from the dynamics of the Ionian and South Tyrrhenian tectonic units, two of the lithosphere blocks of microplates recognized in the highly fragmented Italian portion of the Africa-Eurasia contact. Some of the strongest earthquakes of the last centuries occurred in the Calabrian Arc such as the 1783 and 1905 Calabrian earthquakes as well as the more catastrophic 1908 Messina earthquake.
Records indicate that considerable seismic activity occurred in the areas around the Strait of Messina several months prior to 28 December; it increased in intensity beginning 1 November. On 10 December, a magnitude 4 earthquake caused damage to a few buildings in Novara di Sicilia and Montalbano Elicona, both in the Province of Messina.
A total of 293 aftershocks took place between 28 December 1908 and 11 March 1909.
In 2008, it was proposed that the concurrent tsunami was not generated by the earthquake, but rather by a large undersea landslide it triggered. The probable source of the tsunami was off Giardini Naxos (40 km south of Messina) on the Sicilian coast where a large submarine landslide body with a headwall scarp was visible on a bathymetric map of the Ionian seafloor. Another study attributed the landslide causing the tsunami to north-eastern Sicily and southern Calabria, most likely offshore between San Leo and Bocale in Calabria.
Earthquake.
On Monday, 28 December 1908, at 5:20:27 an earthquake of 7.1 on the moment magnitude scale occurred. Its epicentre was in the Strait of Messina which separates the busy port city of Messina in Sicily and Reggio Calabria on the Italian mainland. Its precise epicentre has been pinpointed to the northern Ionian Sea area close to the narrowest section of the Strait, the location of Messina. It had a depth of around .
The earthquake almost levelled Messina. At least 91% of structures in Messina were destroyed or irreparably damaged and 75,000 people were killed in the city and suburbs. Reggio Calabria and other locations in Calabria also suffered heavy damage, with some 25,000 people killed. Reggio's historic centre was almost completely eradicated. The number of casualties is based on the 1901 and 1911 census data. It was the most destructive earthquake ever to strike Europe. The ground shook for 37 seconds, and the damage was widespread, with destruction felt over a area.
In Calabria, the ground shook violently from Scilla to south of Reggio, provoking landslides inland in the Reggio area and along the sea-cliff from Scilla to Bagnara. In the Calabrian commune of Palmi on the Tyrrhenian coast, there was almost total devastation that left 600 dead. Damage was also inflicted along the eastern Sicilian coast, but outside of Messina, it was not as badly hit as Calabria. The mesoseismal area was confined near the coast along a belt that shook and destroyed Messina and surrounding villages. Catania, the largest city in eastern Sicily, did not incur notable damage.
A young doctor who escaped with his life later recounted that "the profound silence was broken by an extraordinary noise like the bursting of a thousand bombs, followed by a rushing and torrential rain." Then he heard a "sinister whistling sound" which he likened to "a thousand red hot irons hissing in the water." Other survivors reported that there were three separate and different movements during the 37-second main shock: the first shaking backwards and forwards, the second thrusting violently upwards, with the third moving in a circular motion. Most accounts concur that it was the second upwards motion that caused the widespread destruction in Messina; the accompanying noise described as having been "exactly like that made by a fast train in a tunnel".
The elevated death toll was due to the fact that most people were asleep, and killed outright or buried alive in their beds, as their houses collapsed on top of them. Thousands were trapped under debris, suffering horrific injuries of which many would die. One week before the earthquake, 160,000 inhabitants were counted in the entire Messina commune. On 28 December, Messina was even more crowded than usual, due to the number of overnight visitors from outlying areas who had come to the city to see a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida", which had been staged the previous evening at the Vittorio Emanuele II theatre.
Tsunami.
About ten minutes after the earthquake, the sea on both sides of the Strait suddenly withdrew as a 12-meter (39-foot) tsunami swept in, and three waves struck nearby coasts. It struck hardest along the Calabrian coast and inundated Reggio Calabria after the sea had receded from the shore. The entire Reggio seafront was destroyed and people who had gathered there perished. Nearby Villa San Giovanni was also badly hit. Along the coast between Lazzaro and Pellaro, houses and a railway bridge were washed away.
In Messina, the tsunami also caused more devastation and deaths; many of the survivors of the earthquake had fled to the relative safety of the seafront to escape their collapsing houses. The second and third tsunami waves, coming in rapid succession and higher than the first, raced over the harbour, smashed boats docked at the pier, and broke parts of the sea wall. After engulfing the port and three city streets inland beyond the harbour, the waves swept away people, ships that had been anchored in the harbour, fishing boats and ferries, and inflicted further damage on the edifices within the zone which had remained standing after the shock.
The ships that were still attached to their moorings collided with one another but did not incur major damage. Afterwards Messina harbour was filled with floating wreckage and the corpses of drowned people and animals. Towns and villages along the eastern coast of Sicily were assaulted by high waves causing deaths and damage to boats and property. Two hours later the tsunami struck Malta, rushing into Marsamxett Harbour and damaging property in Msida. About 2,000 people were killed by the tsunami in Messina on the eastern coast of Sicily, and in Reggio Calabria and its coastal environs.
Scale of destruction.
Messina lost almost half its population and the entire historical city centre was devastated including its Norman cathedral, which had withstood previous earthquakes such as the severe one in 1783; just the perimeter walls and apses remained standing.
The Messina shoreline was irrevocably altered as large sections of the coast had sunk several feet into the sea. Houses, churches, palaces and monuments, military barracks: commercial, municipal and public buildings had all collapsed entirely or were severely damaged. Many structures were cracked shells, roofless, windowless and standing upright precariously. The Maurolico boarding school in Corso Cavour was pulverised, burying the students. A total of 348 railway workers were killed when the two railway stations crumbled.
The American consulate fronting the harbour was reduced to a pile of rubble; the British consulate sustained little outward damage with its flag still flying, but the interior was completely wrecked. American consul Arthur S. Cheney and his wife Laura were killed. The French consul and his children also lost their lives, although his wife escaped. Ethel Ogston, wife of the British vice-consul, died instantly after being struck by a falling balcony as she attempted to escape through the streets with her husband, Alfred, and daughter, both of whom survived. Former US vice-consul and Messina correspondent for the Associated Press Joseph Pierce and his family were crushed to death when their damaged home in Via Porta Real Basso, close to the harbour, was brought down by the force of the waves created by the tsunami.
Italians who died included sculptor Gregorio Zappalà, the Chief Prosecutor (Procuratore Generale) of Messina Crescenzo Grillo, Giacomo Macrì, former rector of the University of Messina, politicians Nicola Petrina, Nicolò Fulci and Giovanni Noè; as well as local patriots of the Italian unification, members of the nobility, academia and literati. Socialist historian Gaetano Salvemini survived but lost his wife, five children and sister. The Questore (Head of Police) Paolo Caruso died in his office, killed by a fallen beam. Anglican priest and football pioneer Charles Bousfield Huleatt along with his family and other players of the Messina Football Club died. Composer Riccardo Casalaina and his wife perished alongside one another in their bed. Tenor Angelo Gamba who had performed on stage in Aida the evening before the earthquake also lost his life together with his wife and two sons when the Hotel Europa collapsed. The Hungarian soprano Paola Koraleck (who sang the role of Aida) was lying awake when the earthquake struck. She leapt from a window of the damaged Hotel Trinacria, breaking both arms in the fall.
The earthquake wrecked the commercial section along Messina's Corso Vittorio Emanuele that skirted the seafront which included the elegant "Palazzata". This was a long sequence of grand buildings that fronted the sickle-shaped harbour. The "Palazzata" had originally been built in baroque style in the nineteenth century and was mainly the work of Simone Gullí. Most of the baroque buildings had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1783, and were rebuilt in neo-classical style in the early nineteenth century. It was the imposing neo-classical "Palazzata", with some of the surviving baroque buildings, that was almost entirely destroyed in 1908. The shaking was especially intense in the port area resulting in the permanent displacement of the stone pavings in a "wave-like pattern". Damage was heaviest in the old historic centre and the low, level central and northern sections of the city due to the soft sandy soil; it was less severe in the mountainous western part as the structures were built on firmer terrain such as Gonzaga Fort which was unscathed and remains to date. The area between Cathedral Square and the 16th century Civic Hospital which fronted Torrente Portalegni was obliterated; the adjacent Via Porta Imperiale was struck particularly hard on both sides. The Torrente Bocetta zone also received severe damage.
The 17th-century Real Cittadella, which guarded the harbour, was partially destroyed. Huge crevasses and fissures opened in the streets and these as well as the mounds of rubble, and falling masonry, hampered survivors who had fled from their razed homes to seek safety. Two of the main thoroughfares Via Garibaldi and Corso Cavour were rendered impassable by the hillocks of rubble and debris 5 metres (16 ft) in height. Families had become separated and a torrential downpour of rain that had begun only minutes before the earthquake added to the confusion, impeding visibility along with the