Historical evidence of earthquakes from Durrës to Dardani during two thousand years

Year 49 before our era. A ship was heading to Dyrrah, Illyria, but then a sudden storm started to swell the sea. It was this visit of the Roman philosopher and orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, that would become the first historical evidence for the earthquakes on the coast and hinterland of Durrës. According to the description of an old writer, Cicero had not yet set foot on the shore when "an earthquake began accompanied by a strong disturbance of the sea".

On Tuesday morning, with the epicenter a few kilometers north of Durrës, a powerful earthquake of 6.4 degrees on the Richter scale engulfed the entire nearby area of ​​the Albanian coast. Among the ruins and ruins of collapsed houses and buildings, the tragic epilogue of the earthquake only until Friday marked 50 victims, most of them in Durrës and the village of Thumanë, writes "Koha Ditore" today.

But powerful earthquakes are not unknown to the Albanian coast.

In the thousands of years of history, only three earthquakes are recorded in the annals of history. According to historical sources, the first earthquake coincides with Cicero's visit to Durrës in the middle of the first century BC. A few centuries later, namely in the year 345, another earthquake would once again shake the most famous Adriatic port.

An anonymous work, belonging to the middle of the fourth century, is the only notice of this earthquake.

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"Dyrrah, due to the bad habits of its inhabitants, was destroyed by the angry god, sank and was never seen again", writes the anonymous author of the treatise called "Description of the whole world and peoples" (Descriptio totius mundi et gentium). According to the researcher Moikom Zeqo, the destruction of the Illyrian city is explained as "a curse of the biblical type, of the new worldview of the proto-Christians".

Durrës in 1273 or "the end of the world"

The following centuries would witness floods, fires and earthquakes that hit Albanian settlements from time to time, some of which ultimately changed their physiognomy. Durrës would be hit again in 1273 by an earthquake that damaged most of the city, so much so that most of the inhabitants of Durrës took refuge in neighboring cities or even emigrated to Italy. Strong earthquakes hit the city of Berat in 1356, while lightning in 1452 burned the city of Deja.

The uncertainty from natural disasters had caused the municipal authorities in cities, such as Durrës, Shkodra, Tivari, etc., to issue ordinances that disciplined the way houses were built, the disposal of garbage and the discharge of sewage.

But the earthquake that has been documented in more detail is the one that happened at the end of the thirteenth century in the city of Durrës.

Some historians think that it happened in 1273, while others have given alternative opinions for the years 1267, 1269 and 1271. The sources of the time indicate that this earthquake caused many victims and material damages.

Even fifty years later, this earthquake was remembered as a catastrophic event. An Irish pilgrim, who passed through Durrës in 1323, learned that this event had reduced the city to wretched proportions, burying 24 desolate citizens forever in the ruins of their houses (Itinerarium Symonis Semeonis Ab Hybernia ad Terram Sanctam). A few years after it fell into the hands of the Angevins, in 1280, Charles I of Anjou ordered the wall of the acropolis to be equipped with 24 wooden bay windows. Wooden windows were usually supported on beams that were fixed to the wall or connected to the floor of the tower floor. But the most complete historical evidence of this tragic event was written by the Byzantine historian, Gjergj Pahimeri. Born in the city of Nicaea in 1242, he is known for his important work on Byzantine history in 13 books chronicling the reigns of the emperors Michael and Andronicus II Paleologus.

The Byzantine historian describes the earthquake that occurred in Durrës as a "sad event with tears", while presenting the experiences of the inhabitants before this happened.

“In the month of July unusual noises shook the earth continually, which one might generally speaking call shouts which clearly indicated that evil was about to come. For every day more densely and more than [every day] before the rumblings resounded. Some widespread fear convinced them to live somewhere outside the city, so that if something happened, they could escape", writes Pahimeri. "But when night fell, after those noises of the day, there was a powerful and bigger earthquake than those remembered. This was not a tremor of the earth moving vertically, as one might say, but a pulse-like oscillation, so that in an instant that city (Durresi) was overturned from its foundations and fell to the ground.

Collapse of houses and buildings that occupied the inhabitants alive are some of the scenes described by the Byzantine historian. According to him, "nobody had a chance to escape".

"The density of the buildings prevented them from leaving and it was easier to escape inside the house than to get out of them. But even those [buildings] that partially escaped, it was not possible for anyone to escape unscathed because they fell one on top of the other. And she who escaped the danger by chance, when the other house fell, fought inside. And the disaster was general. It was difficult for someone to escape and escape", writes Pahimeri, writes "Koha Ditore".

He goes on to say that many people had the impression that they were in a dream and "before learning the event, they lost".

"Little boys and babies, who knew no evil, were covered by the ruins, and such was the sudden blow and the noise that even the boiling sea outside [made] those who were near suspect that they were not the beginning of the pains, but to feel the end of the world".

When the houses fell on top of each other, according to Pahimer, there were many who suspected that the world was disappearing.

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"Since that city was by the sea and evil, and the shock was suddenly received, and so much confusion of people was made, and so much was the blow of the houses falling one upon another, that those who happened to be outside were greatly shaken by what they heard and they had nothing else to accuse, but the disappearance of the whole world", writes Pahimeri.

"The earthquake lasted quite a while, so that nothing was left standing, but everything that was inside collapsed and covered the people. Only the Acropolis (it stood and did not succumb to the earthquake. When it was day, the surrounding residents ran to help, with hoes, adzes and any other tools they found in front of them they used for digging. Throwing themselves [on the ruins] they dug so that they could "saved from danger some poor people who were still alive".

In the chronicle of the Byzantine historian, the confusion that followed the earthquake, which left only ruins and ruins, is also noted. Not a few were even those who appropriated the assets of the victims.

"At that time, their heirs mixed with the belongings of the murdered, and whoever happened to take them was not prevented by a court decision. After they dug for days, all that was done in the ground and after they made a golden harvest, the Albanians and the surrounding residents, who used the dikhelas together, finally left the former city deserted, which was known by a few faint signs and that it was called that not because it was [now a city], but only because of the name", Pahimeri writes further.

Among the Ikanaks who left the city was the Orthodox bishop of Durrës, Niketa.

"Seeing the bitter calamity, which no one ever expected, he fled in terror, leaving the metropolis [the capital] desolate, not only by himself, but also by its inhabitants [the metropolis], by the beauty of their buildings and belongings ", concludes the Byzantine chronicle.

518-a, the black year for Dardania

In the interior of Albania, the earthquake of 518 AD is mentioned as the earthquake with the most consequences. The information about it is owed to a chronicler originally from Illyria, Marcellinus Comes, who talks about the catastrophic earthquake in Dardanus and the destruction of the castles (Castella). At the time when the first penetrations of the Slavs into the Illyrian lands had begun, the earthquake of 518 that hit Dardania destroyed 24 cities while completely destroying Skopje. "From the continuous earthquakes - writes the chronicler Comes - in the province of Dardan, twenty-four castles were immediately destroyed".

"Two of these sank together with the inhabitants, four were destroyed, losing half of the dwellings and inhabitants, thirteen by the calamity lost a third of the houses and as many of the population, seven were destroyed, losing a quarter of the houses and as much from the population, while the neighboring castles were abandoned for fear of destruction," wrote Comes, who was Justin's secretary before he became emperor.

"The main city of Skupi was also completely destroyed, although it saw the loss of its citizens, who fled before the enemy."

With the detail of a first-hand witness, Comes describes the collapse of mountains and the creation of cracks in the earth.

"Many mountains from all over the province were torn apart by this earthquake, rocks were detached from their massifs and tree trunks fell down. At a distance of thirty miles the ground was split to a width of twelve paces, and a deep ditch was thus prepared into which many of the citizens of the castles fell, who continued to flee from the rolling rocks or from the attacks of the enemies," he writes. , writes "Koha Ditore".

"Then in a castle of the province of Kanisa, which is called Sarnonti, the earth issued from its scorched layers as from a hot furnace a warm and continuous stream of water."

The 1963 Skopje earthquake

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Since the beginning of scientific evidence and seismological measurements, it is estimated that more than 77 earthquakes were recorded in Albania in the nineteenth century. One of the most devastating earthquakes during that century occurred on October 12, 1851, during which Vlora and Himara were partially destroyed. A few days later, on October 17, a new earthquake severely destroyed Berat, where 400 soldiers were caught alive under the ruins of the city's fortress. In the twentieth century, the heaviest were those of November 30, 1967, with magnitude 6,6 and intensity 9, (12 dead and 174 injured), as well as another on April 15, 1979. The latter, with magnitude of 7.25 degrees of Richter, there were 35 dead and 176 injured. According to the official data of the time, included in the book "Earthquake of April 15, 1979", this earthquake "left 100 inhabitants without homes, of which 60 were in Shkodra district, while the rest in Lezha district".

Meanwhile, the earthquake with the most serious consequences was that of July 26, 1963, in Skopje, which left 1070 people dead, several thousand others injured and more than 200 homeless. Meanwhile, in Kosovo, the most powerful earthquake in recent decades was that of April 24, 2002, which hit the Anamorava region, where one person lost his life and significant material damage was recorded.