Shortly prior to the end of the year 1908, the already over-rich story of terrible earthquake episodes was increased by a further horrifying chapter; the catastrophe of 28th December in southern Italy. For the fourth time within fourteen years, another bleak misfortune befell the coasts of Calabria and Sicily, and it brought anonymous misery to the areas sought out by this dreadful natural phenomenon. An earthquake in the year of 1894 was followed by ten years of peaceful pause, and then came the fearful tremors in Calabria in 1905 and 1907 and, before this poor land had yet to recover from these strokes of fate, the terrible violence was again unleashed, and destruction, rot and death were widespread on both sides of the Straits of Messina.

While it was more the central parts of Calabria which suffered in 1905 and both sides of the Straits had less to suffer, it was these which were now most badly hit. The Straits themselves this time appear to have been at the centre, and the effected area is significantly larger than in 1905 and 1907. Powerful earthquake flooding also added to the shock of the tremoring earth, and these rushed over the shore and helped with the destructive work, in that waves of 4 to 10m in height pushed far inland, and swept all before them.

Countless villages, small towns and isolated settlements lie in rubble on both sides of the Straits of Messina.

Particular interest has naturally been paid to both the largest towns in the earthquake area: Reggio in Calabria and Messina on Sicily. Messina, the largest town on Sicily after Palermo, had 147,000 inhabitants before the destruction, was one of the most important trading posts in Italy, and also an important military bay, lay like a painting on the 42km long and few Straits of Messina (the Fretum Siculum), which separate the Calabrian peninsula from the triangular island of Sicily, and connects the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas; the setting of the ancient legends of Charybdis and Scylla. The town, stretched along the slopes of the Peloritani Mountains, had already been almost completely turned to ruins by the great earthquake of 1783, and rose up like an amphitheatre from the flat, rounded cliffs. Competing with Palermo when it comes to picturesque beauty, Messina developed into one of the fastest growing and most important cities of modern Sicily, and this had much to do with its convenient geographical location and excellent harbour. This harbour is surrounded by a tongue of land and shaped like a scythe; and it was therefore named Zancle in ancient times ('Scythe Town'). And now this glorious queen of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which is distinguished by an uncommonly rich and eventful history and in which Goethe composed his Mignon-Lied, is almost in complete ruins.

A terrible picture of destruction after the catastrophe is also provided by the Calibrian Peninsula's capital of Reggio, where the quarter nearest the sea seems to have vanished from the Earth. Reggio di Calabria, the Rhegium of the Romans, lies in a fertile coastal plain, has about 44,000 residents involved in a brisk trade, had wide and regular streets and pretty houses. The thickly built heights around the town provided a wonderful view of the sea and the coast of Sicily, especially Mount Etna.

The catastrophe hit Messina at 5:20 in the morning. As reported by the commander of a torpedo boat, 'Sasso', in the harbour, the sea suddenly rose metres high like a roaring mountain and threw all ships in the harbour into chaos, and it then destroyed the harbour dam will blunt thumps. On the opposite side of the Calabrian coast the flood destroyed an 18km stretch of the Lazzaro-Reggio railway line. The earthquake lasted for 37 seconds. On the 30th, a weaker tremor spread new fear. As a dispatch by Director Ricco from the observatory in Catania reported, the docks of Messina harbour sank down to sea level: the flood wave hit the Sicilian coast between Syracuse and Termini. After the first powerful earth tremor, his observatory detected 42 further ones. Long term changes were caused on both sides of the Straits by the catastrophe; the Calabrian coast is flatter, and the Sicilian coast has new bays and depths. A lighthouse and a number of cliffs have completely disappeared; the sea has retreated in some places and advanced across the land in others. After systematic rescue and clearance work has been taken in hand in the effected areas, the Italian government will commission hydrographic surveys in the earthquake struck areas, so as to discover whether the Straits of Messina will be able to continue having the same degree of importance for shipping.

As shown by observations made at earthquake stations and seismic institutions in North Germany, the quake appears to have shaken almost the entire earth crust. This makes the question as to the cause of this cruel catastrophe all the more important. As Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli all remained completely quiet, a volcanic origin for this natural phenomenon can be ruled out. It is much more likely to have been a so called tectonic or dislocation quake. These quakes are the most widespread. The centre of the tremor is in the mines of the Earth, and can be traced back to movements of the individual layers into which the effected area is divided.

"It is," explains Prof HJ Klein in the Köln Ztg., "the great service of Eduard Sueß, that he has firmly recorded under general points the occurrence of subterranean activity, which shock southern Italy and Sicily from time to time, and managed to explain them. He brought this into connection with the powerful fault zone from the middle of which today rise the Liparian, and whose borders are partly built by crystallized masses of sunken mountains. This area has a radius of some 90-100km, Cocozzo, the Vatican Cape, Scylla and the Peloritani Mountains of Sicily lie within, Sila and Aspromonte without. Radial lines converge against the Liparian. As previously recognised by F Hoffmann and later Judd, within the Liparian south of Stromboli, near the midpoint of the above named Peripherian line, there lie a group of small islands and cliffs whose construction varies from that of the other islands. While those of larger and smaller craters are signs of just as powerful eruptions and are rising, this particular group are only the remnants of a single enormous crater, which Hoffmann termed the Central Crater of the Liparian. According to Hoffmann and Judd, three radial lines run from this group marking the breakage points of the Liparian, and one can assume that there is a close correlation between these radial collision lines and the local quakes. On the other hand, the coastal edges run almost parallel with a fault zone through all of Calabria, the Straits of Messina and carries on to Etna. It is on the edge of the great fault zone, and it constitutes the main earthquake line of southern Italy. The tectonic movements along these fault lines, according to the theory of Sueß, cause the earthquakes experienced in Calabria, and are today changing the form of the surface and coast. The quakes will also not cease until a large part of the land has sunk into the sea. However, these collapses occur gradually and over very long periods of time, and not only there but also at many other places on the land and in the sea, as collapses in the outer part of the Earth's crust are parts of a general, ceaseless process. It naturally all began, as Prof. Sueß stresses, a very long time ago, and it is only because of the short lifespans of the human race that things seem quiet but, nevertheless, the ancient, subterranean forces are always in operation, and we can assume that these changes, which they produce, are similar to those which occurred in the past."

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive
kosmostranslations.htm

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.