Earthquakes near Catania through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.1 on December 28, 1908 (The 1908 Messina, Italy Earthquake and Tsunami), for which NOAA records 80,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 43 here, back to 142 BCE. NOAA records deaths in 32 of the events here, 239,654 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 4.5 on March 4, 2026 (4 km ESE of Catania, Italy). NOAA’s record here begins in 142 BCE with an eruption (Etna). It grows thinner going back: 9 of the 43 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 18 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Catania. The highest water NOAA records here was 13 m, on December 28, 1908. The deadliest, on December 28, 1908, killed 294 people here by NOAA’s runup records. NOAA lists 25 significant eruptions of one volcano within 100 km of Catania. The largest was Etna on June 28, 1329, at 3 on the volcanic explosivity index. The deadliest was Etna in 142 BCE, which killed 40 people by NOAA’s count.

• March 4, 2026Earthquake · M 4.54 km ESE of Catania, ItalyUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 28, 1908Earthquake · M 7.1The 1908 Messina, Italy Earthquake and Tsunami · 80,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• December 28, 1908Tsunami · 13 m hereMessina Strait, Ionian Sea · 294 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• September 8, 1905Earthquake · M 7.25 km W of San Nicolò, Italy · 557 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 11, 1693Earthquake · M 7.4 (est.)Sicily, Calabria · 54,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• June 28, 1329Eruption · VEI 3EtnaNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• 142 BCEEruptionEtna · 40 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Catania when it began within 100 km of its centre, or 200 km for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history