The Messina Earthquake and its Predecessors

Abstract

ITALIAN Government Commissions have recently issued two valuable reports on the earthquakes of Calabria and Messina. One of them deals with the earthquake of November 16, 1894, a shock of great interest, but overshadowed by the disasters of 1905 and 1908. The greater part of this report, of 350 quarto pages, consists of a detailed account of the earthquake by Prof. A. Riccò. Sig. E. Camerana considers the nature and distribution of the damage to property, and suggests methods of construction that should be employed in future; Dr. M. Baratta investigates the relations of the earthquake with its predecessors; and Dr. G. di-Stefano describes the geological structure of. the district. The epicentral area includes the villages of San Procopio, Santa Eufemia, and Seminara, which lie near the west coast of Calabria and about twenty miles from Messina and Reggio. The number of persons killed at these and other places was 101, and the number of wounded about a thousand, the highest death-rate, of about 5 per cent., occurring at San Procopio. The epicentre coincides nearly with that of the well-known Calabrian earthquake of February 5, 1783. The isoseismal lines of the two earthquakes were similar in form, both being flattened and compressed towards the east, and expanding in the opposite direction. The earthquake of 1783 was, however, much the stronger, the loss of life far greater (the death-rate at one place rising to 75 per cent.), and the after-shocks were five times as numerous as in 1894, were of greater intensity, and were spread over a longer interval of time. The earthquake of 1894 was, in fact, a replica, on a much smaller scale, of the greatest of all Calabrian earthquakes.