Qualla: 1861 Eliki Earthquake

1861 Eliki Earthquake: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The morning of 26 December 1861 began as ordinary mornings do. Then, at 8:28, the ground moved. The earthquake that struck the southern margin of the Gulf of Corinth that morning — magnitude 6.6 to 6.7, the shaking rated destructive on the intensity scale — collapsed buildings on both shores of the Gulf and sent tsunami waves rolling across the water. Up to 20 people died. Another 126 were injured, 18 of them seriously. In the villages along the Achaean coast, families lost their homes to rubble on a December morning, one day after Christmas.

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

1861 Eliki Earthquake: A Coast That Moves

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Gulf of Corinth is one of the most seismically active rifts in Europe. The northern and southern shores are being slowly pulled apart — extending at a rate that, over geological time, is rapid — and the faults that accommodate this movement run along both margins of the water...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 4.0

1861 Eliki Earthquake: What the Shaking Left

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Damage spread across both sides of the Gulf, from the Achaean towns of the south shore to communities on the northern coast. The maximum intensity of IX — rated 'destructive' on the European macroseismic scale — indicates ground shaking severe enough to cause heavy damage in well...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

1861 Eliki Earthquake: A Scientist Arrives

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt, the German-born director of the National Observatory of Athens, surveyed the affected region in the earthquake's aftermath and reported a possible surface rupture — a fissure along the ground 12 to 13 kilometres long that marked where the fault ha...

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Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

1861 Eliki Earthquake: Living with the Fault

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Eliki Fault did not become quieter after 1861. In 1995, the Aigio earthquake struck the same region, damaging the town of Aigio and killing 26 people. The Gulf of Corinth has been subject to continuous scientific monitoring since, with GPS networks, seismographs, and fault tr...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0