An article entitled ‘The Easter Sunday 2011 earthquake swarm offshore Malta: Analysis on felt reports’ by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group at the University of Malta’s Department of Geosciences has been published in a book entitled Earthquakes and Their Impact on Society.

The Springer International Publishing book is part of the Springer Natural Hazards series.

In the book, authors Matthew Agius, Sebastiano D’Amico and Pauline Galea report on a detailed investigation of the felt shaking experienced on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011, by hundreds of people in Malta.

On that day, windows rattled, doors shook open, and furniture shifted in many homes across Malta when a series of earthquakes occurred 38km off the eastern coast. In total, 15 earthquakes took place over a period of four days.

The compilation of the felt data reports is a first of its kind for the Maltese islands. The data reflects the demographics as well as the different types of buildings found across the archipelago.

Another article, ‘Earthquakes and people: The Maltese experience of the 1908 Messina earthquake’ by Ruben Paul Borg, D’Amico and Galea, also published in the same book, features the Maltese experience of the 1908 Messina earthquake. The article focuses on the writings of Alfons Maria Galea, a Maltese author and philanthropist who published a book in Maltese on the Messina earthquake and its devastating effects.