Strait of Messina
| Strait of Messina | |
|---|---|
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| Connects waters | Tyrrhenian Sea |
| with water | Ionian sea |
| Separates land mass | Sicily |
| of land mass | Calabria |
| Data | |
| Geographical location | 38 ° 15 ' N , 15 ° 38' E |
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|
| length | 32 km |
| Smallest width | 3 km |
| Coastal towns | Messina , Villa San Giovanni |
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The Strait of Messina ( Italian Stretto di Messina , Strait of Messina) is a strait between Calabria on the Italian mainland and the island of Sicily . It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea in the north with the Ionian Sea in the south. The strait is 32 kilometers long, between three and eight kilometers wide and a maximum of 250 m deep. The most important port is Messina in northeast Sicily.
history
The passage through the Strait of Messina has always been very difficult due to the wind and current conditions and the cliffs that are close on both sides. Ancient authors therefore located the two mythological monsters Scylla and Charybdis , who, according to Homer, lived on a strait and made passage very difficult, on the Strait of Messina. Charybdis was located on the Sicilian side near Messene (Messina). On the Calabrian coast there is the place Scilla , the ancient Scyllaeum .
“This sound is the sea between Rhegion and Messene, where Sicily has the shortest distance from the mainland. This is also the so-called Charybdis, through which Odysseus is said to have passed. The narrowness, where the waters of further seas, the Tyrrhenian and the Sicilian, collide and form currents, was considered dangerous with good reason. "
Because of its central location in the Mediterranean between Italy and Sicily, the Strait of Messina was important in numerous conflicts. Between 42 BC BC and 36 BC Chr. It came here to several naval battles between the later Emperor Augustus and his adversary Sextus Pompey .
In the company training course , around 39,000 German and 62,000 Italian soldiers left Sicily on August 17, 1943 and crossed the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland.
After 1945 there were various bridge projects for the strait , but they have not yet been implemented.
Infrastructure
Railway ferry
There has been a railway ferry connection between Villa San Giovanni and Messina since 1899 , which is now used for passenger and freight traffic.
High voltage power line across the strait
From 1955 to 1994, a crossed high voltage - free line the Strait of Messina for 220 kV. This was suspended from two 232-meter-high masts and was part of the high-voltage line from Sorgente to Rizziconi . Due to the very large span of over three kilometers and the risk of wind-induced vibrations, special design measures were necessary for the cable and the masts. The crossing was the model for the construction of the masts for Elbe crossing 1 (1960). Until the completion of Elbe crossing 2 in 1978, it was the tallest overhead line pylon in the world.
1994 a 6.5 kilometer long was three phase - submarine cables laid on the seabed. The masts were placed under monument protection as "part of the landscape" and used as a meteorological measuring station, for practicing height rescues and as antenna carriers. Since 2006, it has been possible to climb the mast at Messina via 1250 steps.
Bridge projects
There were always plans for a bridge between Sicily and the mainland, but each of them failed due to financial feasibility and unsolved problems in the event of an earthquake in the highly endangered area . In ancient times, Archimedes was already thinking about this. In the 1960s, the German civil engineer Fritz Leonhardt developed a design.
In an architectural competition in 1970, five completed bridge designs and one tunnel project were awarded. The execution of the selected plan should take 7 years and initially cost the equivalent of 3.5 billion D-Marks. In the following years, however, the estimated costs rose to the equivalent of 7 billion Deutschmarks. The Italian government finally abandoned the project in 1975 due to lack of money.
On October 13, 2005, the Italian parliament, under the government of Silvio Berlusconi, awarded the Italian construction company Impregilo a contract to build a 3.3 km long bridge over the Strait of Messina . The project, which cost approx. 4 billion euros, was to be implemented in the period from 2006 to 2012. The government under Romano Prodi stopped the construction project in October 2006. The re-elected government under Berlusconi in 2008 pushed the project forward again. In 2013 the project was rejected again.
Natural gas pipeline
The 2,500-kilometer-long Transmed natural gas line , which runs from Algeria to northern Italy, has been crossing the Strait of Messina since 1983 .
ecology
The Strait of Messina is the European spawning ground for the strapfish Regalecus glesne , the longest bony fish in the world.
Bird migration concentration point
During the months of April and May fly up to 30,000 birds of prey (mostly honey buzzard , marsh harrier , black kite , a total of about 25 species) and storks the Strait of Messina on the way to their breeding habitats in northern Europe. Until the 1990s, there was heavy illegal hunting of migratory birds on both sides of the waterway . As a result of the commitment of voluntary conservationists (including migration-unlimited ) and the Italian forest police, there is hardly any poaching today.
Trivia
- Gravity waves occur south of the Strait of Messina .
- On June 9, 1962, a swimmer crossed the Strait of Messina for the first time.
See also
Web links
- Power line across the Strait of Messina. In: Structurae
- Bridge project Strait of Messina (it / en)
- Fabio Spadi: The Bridge on the Strait of Messina: 'Lowering' the Right of Innocent Passage? . In: International and Comparative Law Quarterly / 4. Series , Vol. 50 (2001), p. 441, ISSN 0020-5893 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ z. B. Thucydides 4, 24, 5.
- ↑ Scholion to Apollonios of Rhodes. 4, 825.
- ^ Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, German version, Vol. 1, p.292, IV 24
- ↑ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Collection of the published official gazettes from November 25, 1899. Volume 3, No. 50. Announcement No. 481, p. 364.
- ↑ Francesco Pagano: Il Pilone de Torre Faro. August 20, 2007, accessed April 25, 2010 (Italian).
- ↑ Pompous bankruptcies . In: Der Spiegel , vol. 29 (1975), issue 14 of March 31, 1975, p. 102, ISSN 0038-7452 .
- ^ Trans-Mediterranean Natural Gas Pipeline, Algeria. hydrocarbons-technology.com, accessed September 24, 2013 .