An underwater landslide and not an earthquake, as previously thought, caused the tsunami which devastated the Sicilian city of Messina in 1908, according to a new study.
''Landslides are a frequent and unpredictable phenomenon. Nevertheless, a better knowledge of areas at risk could be of great help for preventive civil protection,'' observed one of the authors of the study, Rome University geologist Andrea Billi.
The study was the result of joint research by Billi and his Rome university colleagues Renato Funicello, Liliana Minelli and Claudio Faccenna, together with University of Messina professors Giancarlo Neri, Barbara Orecchio and Debora Presti.
''We now know for certain that in 1908 a landslide took place in the underwater shelf off Sicily's eastern Ionian Sea coast some 80 to 100 kilometers east of Giardini-Naxos'' south of Taormina, Billi said.
''Some 20 cubic kilometers of rock moved in the shift, slightly more than the landside in Stromboli which triggered a rogue wave in 2002,'' he added.
Part of the volcanic mountain on the Eolian island broke off during an eruption creating a tidal wave which swept across the entire archipelago north of Sicily and arrived as far as the Sicilian coast.
According to calculation carried out by the researchers, the 1908 wave travelled at a speed of no less than 100kph up the Messina Strait causing major damage not only to Messina but also Reggio Calabria and towns along the Sicilian and Calabrian shorelines.
The Italian study will appear in the next edition of the Geophysical Research Letters, a magazine published by the American Geophysical Union.
Earlier this month, Italian geophysicist Stefano Lorito of the Rome-based National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology published a report warning that Southern Italy, and in particular Sicily, could risk being hit by a tsunami in the event of an earthquake in the Mediterranean Sea.
In his study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Lorito and his team examined all data related to the risk of earthquakes in the Mediterranean region and simulated tsunami which could be created by hypothetical earthquakes.
Were an earthquake to take place off the coast of Greece, the study said, within an hour it could create a tsunami five meters high which would hit the southeast coast of Sicily.
A similar situation could occur should a major earthquake take place off North Africa.
According to the study, a particularly violent earthquake could create a tsunami as high as 15 meters.
Aside from Italy, the other countries most at risk of being hit by tsunamis in the Mediterranean were said to be Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Greece.
