The 1881 Chios earthquake occurred at 13:40 local time (11:30 UTC) on 3 April. It caused severe damage on the island of

Chios Chios (; el, Χίος, Chíos , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greek island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. Chios is notable for its exports of mastic ...

and also affected

Çeşme Çeşme () is a coastal town and the administrative centre of the district of the same name in Turkey's westernmost end, on a promontory on the tip of the peninsula that also carries the same name and that extends inland to form a whole with the ...

and

Alaçatı Alaçatı is a part of İzmir on the Western coast of Turkey, often noted for its architecture, vineyards, windmills, and sea. Alaçatı is one of the most traditional towns in Turkey, with stone houses, narrow streets, boutique hotels and resta ...

on the coast of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. 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 ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...

is an area of mainly

extensional tectonics Extensional tectonics is concerned with the structures formed by, and the tectonic processes associated with, the stretching of a planetary body's crust or lithosphere. Deformation styles The types of structure and the geometries formed depend on ...

caused by the

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

of the

African Plate The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plat ...

beneath

Aegean Sea Plate The Aegean Sea Plate (also called the Hellenic Plate or Aegean Plate) is a small tectonic plate located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea under southern Greece and western Turkey. Its southern edge is the Hellenic subduction zone south of Crete, ...

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. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

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), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

Isoseismal map In seismology, an isoseismal map is used to show lines of equally felt seismic intensity, generally measured on the Modified Mercalli scale. Such maps help to identify earthquake epicenters, particularly where no instrumental records exist, such as ...

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 ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) 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 other underwater explo ...

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 the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousand ...

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 The Chios massacre (in el, Η σφαγή της Χίου, ) was a catastrophe that resulted to the death, enslavement, and refuging of about four-fifths of the total population of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman Empire, Ottoman troop ...

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 1881 earthquakes April 1881 events 1881 disasters in Greece 1881 disasters in the Ottoman Empire

Tectonic setting

Damage

Characteristics

Aftermath

See also

References