The 1881 Chios earthquake occurred at 13:40 local time (11:30

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

) on 3 April. It caused severe damage on the island of

Chios Chios (; , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greece, Greek list of islands of Greece, island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, tenth largest island in the Medi ...

and also affected

Çeşme Çeşme, officially the Çeşme Municipality, is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of İzmir Province, Turkey. Its area is 285 km2, and its population is 48,924 (2022). It sits at Turkey's westernmost end, on a promontory on t ...

and

Alaçatı Alaçatı is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Çeşme, İzmir Province, Turkey. Its population is 10,386 (2022). Before the 2013 Turkish local government reorganisation, 2013 reorganisation, it was a town (''belde''). It is on t ...

on the coast of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.3 and there were an estimated 7,866 casualties. The devastation from the earthquake was the last of the three 'catastrophes' that affected the island of Chios in the 19th century.

Tectonic setting

The

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

is an area of mainly

extensional tectonics Extensional tectonics is concerned with the structures formed by, and the Tectonics, tectonic processes associated with, the stretching of a planetary body's Crust (geology), crust or lithosphere. Deformation styles The types of structure and the ...

caused by the

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

of the African plate beneath Aegean Sea plate.

Damage

The town of Chios was devastated, causing many casualties, partly due to the narrowness of the streets. In the rest of the island, 25 out of the 64 villages were destroyed with another 17 badly damaged. In both Çeşme and Alaçatı about 40% of the houses were destroyed. The number of casualties on the Turkish mainland was low, possibly due to most of the inhabitants leaving their houses to watch the passage of the passenger ship ''Aya Evangelistra'' from the shore.

Characteristics

The

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

of the earthquake was in the southeastern part of Chios where intensities reached IX (''Violent'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS) measures the effects of an earthquake at a given location. This is in contrast with the seismic magnitude usually reported for an earthquake. Magnitude scales measure the inherent force or ...

Isoseismal map In seismology, an isoseismal map is used to show Contour line, countour lines of equally felt seismic intensity, generally measured on the Modified Mercalli scale. Such maps help to identify earthquake epicenters, particularly where no seismometer ...

s show an elongation west to east with an area of intensity VIII (''Severe'') affecting the western end of the Karaburun Peninsula of the Turkish mainland. Vertical movements of up to were observed. Magnitudes ranging from = 6.5 to = 7.3 have been estimated for this event. A minor

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

was reported, based on the presence of fresh sand in a garden in Chios, but there is no other information available. There were many strong

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in Epicenter, the same area of the Mainshock, main shock, caused as the displaced Crust (geology), crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthq ...

s, the most damaging being on 5 April, 11 April (2), 12 April, 13 April, 18 April, 20 May, 9 June and 26 August.

Aftermath

After the earthquake many of the inhabitants of

left the island. This followed the trend set by the other two 'catastrophes' of the 19th century that devastated the island, the massacre of Chios in 1822 and the failure of the orange crop in 1833. Together these events left most of Chios in a state of poverty and severely underpopulated.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chios 1881 1881 Chios 1881 Chios 1881 in Greece 1881 in the Ottoman Empire

1881 Events January * January 1– 24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkomans. * January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The Chilean army ...

1881 earthquakes April 1881 1880s disasters in Europe 19th-century disasters in Greece 19th-century disasters in the Ottoman Empire

Tectonic setting

Damage

Characteristics

Aftermath

See also

References