Seismic history and hazard in some localities of south-eastern Sicily

The effects of the main earthquakes which hit some localities of south-eastern Sicily were studied in detail in order to reconstruct the site seismic history and to evaluate the seismic hazard. The selected localities suffered destruction or heavy damage because of earthquakes located in the coastal sector of the Hyblean plateau. Besides this seismicity, the town of Nicolosi was heavily damaged by the events occurring in the Etna area as well. The great amount of available information, found in the historical sources and in the damage survey documents, allowed us to reassess the intensity according to the new 1998 European Macroseismic Scale. The seismic histories have been used to compute the hazard through seismic site observations. The resulting mean return periods appear generally shorter than those obtained using a classical approach such as Cornell's.