Lock the gates! Senglea kept ALL its residents safe during Bubonic plague using this one practice
The city recorded no deaths, unlike Valletta and Birkirkara.
Affecting Malta between March 1813 and January 1814 and again between February and May 1814, the Bubonic plague claimed 4,500 lives, which amounts to 5% of the total population on the Maltese islands.
However, none of these deaths are believed to have come from Senglea, after the village took some drastic measures to ensure its residents' health and well-being.
In a Facebook post by local history group HRGM, it was revealed that: "the town of Senglea managed to survive by sealing itself to the exterior world by plaxing itself into self-quarantine. This was quite successful because despite being a harbour tow (thus, highly vulnerable to infections) none of its inhabitants died from the disease."
At the time, the benefit of quarantine - slowing and containing the spread of a disease - was known, as the practise was an old one. Senglea had one natural advantage due to being a peninsula: "three sides [were] naturally closed off by the sea. The narrow entrance to the town was closed off by its historic gates.
Other towns which managed to avoid the plague were Qrendi, Gharghur, Balzan, Kirkop, Ghaxaq and Safi however Valletta, Birkirkara, Qormi and Zebbug were not as lucky and recorded a high death toll.