When Malta Shook: The Seven Past Tremors That Caused Damage On The Islands
As tremor-prone Malta continues to experience a series of mild earthquakes, it’s time to have a look through the island’s shaking history.
Throughout documented history, the Maltese islands experienced seven tremors that shook it to its core and caused infrastructural damage. Here they are, in chronological order.
10th December 1542
Hitting Eastern Sicily just 12 years after the Knights of St John moved to Malta, this quake, which registered at a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale, was reportedly felt very strongly all over the island.
In fact, it was written that some one-floor dwellings, known as casupole, collapsed as a result of this powerful earthquake along the Scordia-Lentini graben fault.
11th January 1693
Known to this day as the worst earthquake to ever be felt in Malta and Gozo, the 7.4 magnitude earthquake came two days after a 5.9 earthquake hit Eastern Sicily.
On the Italian island, it caused greater destruction and loss of life than the one caused by Mount Vesuvius in 79AD.
An estimated two-thirds of Catania’s population, anywhere between 60,000 and 93,000 people, died on that day. Back in Malta, many houses in Valletta were damaged during the four-minute shaking, with several church domes all over the island even collapsing.
In Mdina, the cathedral partially collapsed, with the earthquake hastening the decision to demolish it and replace it with a new cathedral. The new building only took five years to complete, from 1697 to 1702.
Before the 1693 earthquake, Mdina and its cathedral looked very different, with the powerful tremor damaging a lot of buildings, from houses and churches to the surrounding walls and fortifications.
The decision to dismantle the old, damaged cathedral came three months later, on 11th April 1693. The choir and sacristy survived the earthquake and were incorporated into the new cathedral.
20th February 1743
Seven long minutes of shaking hit the islands 50 years later, at a magnitude of 6.9. In Qala, Gozo, people said the ground rose and fell with such force that the soil was left floating in the air, creating “a mist like a fog for a long time”.
Many sections from hills in Gozo crumbled, and a number of chapels – including Our Lady at Qala – were badly damaged. Mdina’s cathedral got hit again, with a small dome collapsing into the church and the bell towers suffering heavy damage.
12th October 1856
Technically the strongest earthquake to hit close to Malta, this one thankfully had its epicentre much further away than the ones before, just under Eastern Crete, at a magnitude of 7.7.
Malta was still significantly hit anyway, with the dome and sides of Gozo’s St George’s Church being left “wide open” with detached blocks of stone. Mdina’s cathedral was hit again, with parts of the dome collapsing and causing over £1,000 of damage. A chapel in Filfla also collapsed.
27th August 1886
Malta was hit by a week-long “swarm” of earthquakes which caused great alarm among the people, with the highest one at a 5.5 magnitude.
Newspapers reported people rushing into the streets after being woken up. Churches remained open throughout the night, with open-air prayer happening over a number of days.
The impact wasn’t very serious, but the Court of Justice, some churches, and houses were damaged in Valletta… and for a change, the Mdina Cathedral also suffered some damages.
30th September 1911
A powerful earthquake hit the west of Gozo, at a magnitude of 7.3, with most of the significant damage being recorded on Malta’s sister island.
Everyone abandoned their houses in Gozo, with some furniture even being overturned and pendulum clocks stopping.
At Fort Chambray, a great long crack ran across the square, with holes appearing in buildings all over the island. The “loud rumbling” and strong shaking were also reported in Malta, although with less damage.
18th September 1923
While this earthquake is very well documented in the local newspapers, at a magnitude of around 6.4, there isn’t much to go off from the Valletta seismograph… because the tremor appears to have thrown the mechanism out of alignment.
Most damages were nonstructural, with stone crosses collapsing and cracks showing up in church domes. Meanwhile, the quake was reportedly only slightly felt in Sicily’s Syracuse.
Between 1972 and 2016, there were at least 41 notable tremors that were felt in a number of localities all around Malta but did not cause any notable damages.
Meanwhile, in the first month of 2023, dozens of quakes have already hit, with some being felt more than others. At the same time, none of them have exceeded a magnitude of 5.5.
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