!!!Erdbeben

Earthquake: In Austria, earthquakes are confined to the lines of 
action of tectonic forces, on account of which certain areas in the 
Eastern Alps are pronounced earthquake areas. There is a continuous 
line of foci of seismicity which extends from the Leitha river along 
the eastern edge of the Alps (  Thermenlinie), the Semmering pass and 
the Mur and Muerz valleys down to Carinthia; further earthquake zones 
are Tirol north of the Inn river and the Drau/Drava valley. Tectonic 
earthquake foci are also found in the Bohemian Massif (Lower Austria: 
Neulengbach and Scheibbs, Upper Austria: Molln). The earliest 
reference to an earthquake in Austria, which is stated as having 
occurred in the vicinity of Tulln, is found in the "Vita 
Severini" (480 A.D.). The first chronologically dated 
destructive quake of major proportions was the one at Murau on 
May 5, 1201. The most violent earthquake to date was the 
"Earthquake of Villach" of January 25, 1348, which caused 
considerable damage in the city and was associated with a major 
landslide on  Dobratsch mountain (Villacher Alpe). In eastern Austria 
there was a particularly intense quake in the night of 
September 15/16, 1590, which had its epicentre at Neulengbach).

\\
An earthquake commission of the Academy of Sciences was established on 
April 24, 1895 to study seismic phenomena in Austria, with 
observatories at Kremsmuenster (1898) and Vienna (1902). In 1904 the 
commission became part of the  Zentralanstalt fuer Meteorologie und 
Geodynamik (Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics). 
Further seismographs were set up in Graz in 1904 and in Innsbruck in 
1912. Since 1945 all public institutions, and especially the police 
and gendarmerie, have been under the obligation to report whatever 
observations they may have made.

!Literature
E. Suess, Die Erdbeben Niederoesterreichs, Denkschrift of 
the Akademy of Sciences, 1873; Mitteilungen der Erdbeben-Kommission, 
from 1896 in the minutes of the Academy of Sciences, since 1901 as 
separate series under the title "Neue Folge"; J. Drimmel, Rezente 
Seismizitaet und Seismotektonik des Ostalpenraumes, in: R. Oberhauser, 
Der geologische Aufbau Oesterreichs, 1980; R. Gutdeutsch et al., 
Erdbeben als historisches Ereignis. Die Rekonstruktion des Bebens von 
1590 in Niederoesterreich, 1993; C. Hammerl and W. A. Lenhardt, 
Erdbeben in Oesterreich, 1997.


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