Messina , Italy 1908 . One of the strongest earthquake in the history . What’s the story of this earthquake ?
I used to read that at least 100000 were killed .
The Messina earthquake took place at 05:21 am of Dec.28th,1908 and it lasted 37 seconds. The magnitude was 7,2 of the Richter scale. Messina was almost entirely destroyed by the earthquacke but mostly of the victims had been caused by the associated tsunami. In fact just after the main eart tremor all the survivors went out from their homes (all of them were sleeping since it was early morning) looking for a refuge on the seaside.The earthquake caused this tsunami with waves extimated 10 linear meter highs (abt 11 yards) and at the end about 80,000 people had been killed.However the earthquacke and the tsunami hited also Reggio Calabria (on the other side of the Sicily Straits) nearly in front of Messina causing further 15,000 deaths. In the neiborhoods other a few thousands people died ant then the total was some more than 100,000 victims. You’ve to consider that at that time Messina had 130,000 inhabitants ( and 80,000 dyed) while Reggio Calabria counted 15,000 killed on a total of 45,000 residents.
TERREMOTO A MESSINA celebrazioni centenario – KULTURFEST