November 1, 2004

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  249 YEARS AGO TODAY

  
  

  

  
  

  Nov 1 1755
  

  An earthquake and resultant fire destroys Lisbon.

  
  

  The previous evening strange plumes of dark yellow smoke had been observed, and the water in the wells began to develop a strange taste. Early in the morning livestock became unusually agitated and burrowing animals came out of their holes. Then, at 9.30 am, a magnitude 8.5 earthquake was unleashed offshore about 20Okm to the southeast.

  
  

  The quay was sunk instantly by the first shock and 600 people were reported to have perished. Several buildings within the city collapsed, trapping the people inside. After nine minutes the ground finally stopped shaking and the city began to contemplate recovery.

  
  

   

  
  

  However, their troubles were only just beginning. The earthquake had generated a tidal wave, a tsunami that swept towards the Portuguese coast. The tsunami wave grew as it reached the shallow waters of the mouth of the River Tagus, and by the time it reached Lisbon it was over five metres high. The waters crashed over the seawall and extended 250m into the city, drowning a further 900 people.

  
  

  . The damage generated by the earthquake and the tidal wave had initiated a large number of fires across the city. In the ensuing chaos, these fires grew larger until they became an uncontrollable inferno. A huge swath of the city was subsequently destroyed and a further 10,000 people were burnt to death. Flames raged for five days.

  
  

  

  
  

  Gigantic fissures five meters wide ripped apart the city centre. The survivors rushed to the open space of the docks for safety and watched as the water receded, revealing the sea floor, littered by lost cargo and old shipwrecks.

  
  

  The shockwaves of the earthquake were felt throughout Europe and North Africa. Tsunamis up to twenty meters in height swept the coast from North Africa to Finland and across the Atlantic to Martinique and Barbados.

  
  

  Of a population of 275,000, about 90,000 were killed. Another 10,000 were killed  in Morocco. Eighty-five percent of Lisbon's buildings were destroyed, including its famous palaces and libraries.  The Royal Palace was destroyed . Inside, the 70,000-volume library and hundreds of works of art, including paintings by Titian, Rubens, and Correggio, were lost. The precious royal archives concerning the exploration of the Atlantic and old documents also disappeared. The earthquake destroyed also the major churches of Lisbon. The Royal Hospital of All-Saints was consumed by fire and hundreds of patients burned to death.

  
  

  

  
  

  The jail was damaged, and escaped prisoners were looting, setting fires, and committing mayhem.

  
  

  After the catastrophe, King  Joseph I developed a fear of living within walls, and the court was accommodated in a huge complex of tents and pavilions in the hills of Ajuda.

  
  

  The catastrophe struck on a Catholic holiday and destroyed every important church. For the religious minds of the 18th century, this manifestation of the anger of God was difficult to explain. Many contemporary writers, such as Voltaire, mentioned the earthquake on their writings.

  
  

  

  
  

  "This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters in the best of all possible worlds-- where a hundred thousand ants, our neighbours, are crushed in a second on our ant-heaps, half, dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath débris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all over Europe reduced to beggary, and the fortunes of a hundred merchants swallowed up in the ruins of Lisbon. What a game of chance human life is! What will the preachers say -- especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! I flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like other people. That ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike." -Voltaire, Nov. 24, 1755

  
  

   In the following days, priests roamed the city hanging people suspected of heresy on sight, blaming them for the disaster.

  
  

   Conflicts were constant and silent opposition to King Joseph I started to rise. This would end in an attempted murder of the king and the elimination of the powerful Tavora family.

  
  

  -http://www.science.soton.ac.uk/science_news/current_issue/index.php?link=article.php&article=13

  
  

  -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake

  
  

   

  • 9:33 am
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