The Messina Earthquake, Europe's most powerful earthquake shook southern Italy on December 28, 1908. The epicenter was in the Messina Strait, which separates Sicily from Calabria. The quake's magnitude equaled a 7.5 by today's Richter scale.
Moments after a devastating tsunami formed, causing forty-foot waves to crash down on dozens of coastal cities. Most of southern Italy's cities lost as many as half their residents with the total death toll throughout Italy was estimated at nearly 200,000. More
