Seismic effects of the strongest historical earthquak in the Syracuse area

Abstract

The effects of earthquakes that occurred in a given area contribute significantly to the evaluation of to local seismic hazard. The information concerning historical earthquakes of the Mediterranean area covers many centuries, but the wealth of information made available by historical seismology does not appear to ha taken into account by engineering seismologists. By adopting "attenuation laws" based on data contained in the seismic catalogues, not only do we sometimes come up against the gross errors normally found jn logues, but we also lose sight of important details relating to the characteristics of urban seismic scenarios this paper we describe the results obtained from the analysis of seismic scenarios in Ortigia (old Syracuse this analysis we emphasized the qualitative and descriptive data to outline the "largest historical eve reassessed the data concerning five earthquakes that occuned in 1169,1542,1693,1757 and 1846, w reported by the Catalogue of Italian Earthquakes with an intensity greater than or equal to IX MCS epicentre of which was located within 50 km of the city. The last two of these earthquakes turned out t result of mistakes in the transmission of the news and have therefore been removed trom the list of de events. In addjtjon, we reconstructed the damage caused by the 1542 and 1693 earthquakes on a ma ancient town of Ortigia, taking into account the economic, demographic, and urbanistic conditions of t The empirical elements supplied to evaluate the local seismic response can also be of use in the preservation of historical buildings.

Keywords

• Eastern Sicily
• Syracuse
• historical earthquake
• seismic hazard