How far could an earthquake move the ground?

Loudon describes the Calabrian earthquakes as cracking the ground and lowering or levelling hills. She names Sir William Hamilton as an authority who gave a detailed account of the earthquakes^[1][2].

One reported scene makes the scale vivid: a piece of ground a mile long and half a mile wide, carrying two cottages and several trees, was said to have travelled about a mile down a valley, with the houses and most trees still upright. That is what Loudon’s historical account claims, not a movement independently verified here as a present-day fact^[3].