Italy is one of Europe's most seismically and volcanically active countries because the African Plate is slowly converging with the Eurasian Plate beneath the Mediterranean. This complex collision folds and fractures the Apennine mountain chain that runs down the peninsula, producing frequent earthquakes, while subducting slabs and rising magma feed a line of volcanoes in the south.
Italy is home to Europe's most famous volcanoes: Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD; Etna on Sicily, one of the world's most active; and Stromboli, in near-constant mild eruption. Devastating earthquakes recur along the Apennines, from the 1908 Messina disaster that killed around 80,000 people to the deadly quakes of L'Aquila in 2009 and Amatrice in 2016.