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PROCEEDINGS OE THE OTTAWA MEETING 



CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKE OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1905 

 BY WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS 



[Abstract] 



■K 



The Calabrian earthquake of September 8, 1905, was the most severe in that 

 seismically classical region for more than a century, and its relations to the, 

 lineaments of the Calabrian peninsula are most interesting. The losses to life 

 and property as reported to the writer by the Ministry of the Interior of the 

 Italian Government* were as given in the following table : 



Province. 



Number 



of persons 



killed 



Number 

 wounded. 



Property losses 

 in Italian lire. 





47 



480 



2 



222 



1,598 



57 



20,500,000 



20,500,000 



7,000,000 









529 



1,877 



48,000,000 



Early in the following October all sections of the afflicted region were visited 

 by the writer, and attention was devoted especially to the distribution of dam- 

 age to determine the relation of the destructive force of the shocks to the 

 topographic features and the geologic structure. 



In Monteleone, a city of 13,000 inhabitants, located near the center of the 

 affected region, the buildings along a single street were leveled by the shocks, 

 whereas elsewhere in the city all houses remained standing.* The direction 

 of this street extended intersected ruined villages in the paese. With the clue 

 afforded by this interesting observation, application for further information 

 was made at the military headquarters of the forces engaged in succoring the 

 afflicted people. General Ferrario exhibited to the writer a large scale topo- 

 graphic map of the region, upon which had been plotted the data of detailed 

 reports from subordinate commands, and which revealed by spots of two 

 different colors, first, the communes which had sustained damage, and, second, 

 those which had been largely wrecked and in which there was the direst dis- 

 tress. The dense population of Calabria made this map one of very great 

 interest, for a network of destructive zones was apparent and had been recog- 

 nized by the staff officers. The straight elements of this network were marked 

 topographic features and in many instances well-known fault-lines. 



The field work completed, a study of the unusually complete earthquake 

 records of Calabria — records extending over three centuries — was undertaken 

 at Rome and yielded the following general conclusions : 



First. The same communes have been either repeatedly damaged by earth- 

 quakes or have remained unscathed. To each a figure may be assigned to 

 indicate in a roughly made scale its relative seismicity. 



Second. The seismically prominent communes are arranged in lines — seis- 

 motectonic lines — corresponding in position to those revealed by the damage 



* Through the kind offices of the American Embassador at Rome. 



t It was afterward ascertained that the houses upon this street had been the first to 

 be leveled by the terrible earthquake of 1783. 



