On 28 December 1908, at 05:20 in the morning, in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the strongest earthquakes occurred. The epicentre, at sea, triggered the most destructive tsunami ever recorded in Italy, with severe consequences on the coasts of eastern Sicily and southern Calabria.
On the anniversary, the INGVterremoti team publishes the story map "28 December 1908: the sorrowful sunrise over Messina Straits" (in ITA) to retrace the various aspects of this tragic event of the last century through images, videos, narratives and testimonies.
The phenomena generated by the earthquake and tsunami are accurately described in articles published in 2020 and 2015 (INGVterremoti).
In this article, we would like to highlight the valuable contribution of Mario Baratta, a leading expert on seismic phenomena in Italy between the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, who travelled to Messina and Reggio Calabria a few days after the event and in 1910 published his study in a volume of over 400 pages entitled “La catastrofe sismica calabro messinese (28 dicembre 1908) Relazione alla Società Geografica Italiana”.
