The sun had yet to set on the Sicilian port city of Messina. Its citizens were nonetheless fully awake. Nature’s alarm clock did not come from the sky. This time, it came from the ground.
During the early morning hours of Dec. 28, 1908, Europe experienced its most catastrophic earthquake. The phenomenon began at 5:20 a.m. in Messina, causing massive destruction to the city. By the end of the earthquake, as many as 60,000 people (approximately 40 percent of the city’s population) were killed. But the devastation had only begun.
