EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES.
“The thunder roared his signal to the sea,
While shook the frightened earth through all her coasts,
And mountains bowed their trembling heads in awe,
And yawning gulfs leaped up amid the plains.
The fountains of the mighty deep were rent,
The waves, long prisoned in their rocky bounds,
Roared, in a strange new freedom rushing forth,
And sprang on forest, plain, and mount, and hill, and vale,
Exulting in destruction; while the frightened hordes
Of men, with birds and beasts of every sort,
Fought each with each for refuge from the flood,
Yet none escaped.”
Records and myths of great earthquakes go back almost to prehistoric
times. The Greeks tell of an immense flood--perhaps a sea wave--which
overwhelmed Attica immediately after an earthquake in the nineteenth
century before Christ. It is known as the deluge of Ogyges, from the
name of the reigning king. Some three centuries later is the story of a
great earthquake and flood in Thessaly, from which Deucalion and Pyrrha
escaped. There is a still vaguer legend of an immense earthquake about
2400 B. C., that shook all Southern Europe, and Asia Minor, opening an
outlet for the Black Sea, which had before been entirely inland. In the
convulsion of the seas, we are told almost all the people of Greece and
Asia Minor perished. Chinese traditions and monuments tell of an immense
earthquake at the same period, which suddenly raised the bottom of the
great Northern Sea, pouring its waters out upon all North China and
drowning the people. Where the great sea once was is now the great
Mongolian Desert.
[Illustration: THE DELUGE.]
Likewise the Egyptian priests told Plato of a great island, Atlantis,
lying off the coast of North Africa, stretching an unknown distance to
the west; the home of a mighty nation that ruled all the western world,
to the shores of the Mediterranean, and threatened the liberty of the
European world. It is said that they made war on the combined forces of
Greece and Egypt; and in the crisis of the struggle a fearful earthquake
swallowed up the Grecian soldiery in a single night, and sunk Atlantis
in the ocean since called from its name, Atlantic.
Doubtless all these traditions relate to the same terrible catastrophe
described in Genesis. The Chinese even tell us in what way the
“fountains of the great deep were broken up.” It would seem that a great
sea once extended northeastward from the present basin of the Caspian
over the deserts of Central Asia; and that an awful upheaval of this
basin was the chief factor in the flood. Isthmuses were torn asunder:
vast oceans hurled their gigantic waves over the continents, and over
islands engulfed forever. The extraordinary evaporation from the unusual
expanse of water, the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, produced
torrents of rain. “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep
broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Whatever be the truth
of the traditions, it is certain they preserve the memory of a
catastrophe unparalleled in recent days.
Of a later date, there is the story that the Ciminian and Alban lakes
near Rome were created by a terrible earthquake; but the date of this
event is not very definite. The Japanese tell us that the great volcano,
Fujiyama, was thrown up in a single night, and at the same time the lake
in Oomi was created, near by, on the site of a number of flourishing
villages.
Occasionally an earthquake has brought about a historic crisis. In the
year 464 B. C., “in the fourth year of the reign of Archidamus, there
happened the most dreadful earthquake in Sparta that had ever been
known. In several places the country was entirely swallowed up: Täygetus
and other mountains were shaken to their foundations; many of their
summits, being torn away, came tumbling down; and the whole city was
laid in ruins, five houses only excepted. To heighten the calamity, the
Helots, who were slaves to the Lacedemonians, looking upon this as a
favorable opportunity to recover their liberty, pervaded every part of
the city, to murder such as had escaped the earthquake; but finding them
under arms, and drawn up in order of battle, by the prudent foresight of
Archidamus, who had assembled them around him, they retired into the
neighboring cities, and commenced that day open war, having entered into
an alliance with several of the neighboring nations, and being
strengthened by the Messenians, who at that time were engaged in war
with the Spartans.” But for the timely aid of others, Sparta might have
been overthrown. The most striking feature is the astonishing coolness
and presence of mind of the Spartans in the face of such a dire
calamity.
This is, perhaps, the earliest earthquake of which careful historic
mention is made. But from that time, the record thickens rapidly. In the
year 373 B. C., a great shock did fearful damage throughout all Greece,
destroying thousands of lives and damaging millions of dollars worth of
property in a single night. The inhabitants of the Peloponnesus, roused
by the convulsion, waited in fear for the morning. Dawn showed that the
two beautiful cities of Bura and Helice were no more. The sea rolled
above. Long after, on calm, clear days, Helice, once an inland town,
could be seen at the bottom of the Corinthian Gulf; silent and beautiful
in its ruin, marble temples and shattered homes presenting a literal
“city of the dead.”
[Illustration: RUINED ROMAN COLONNADE.]
The year B. C. 217 found Rome and Carthage locked in deadly combat.
While Hannibal and Flaminius fought by Thrasymene, earth felt the throes
of war, and shook Italian cities down, while lakes and streams were
tumbled from their beds. North Africa suffered, perhaps, the greatest
shaking recorded in her history; one hundred towns were lost, and tens
of thousands of people perished.
In A. D. 17 thirteen cities of Asia Minor were thrown to the ground. The
Emperor Tiberius rebuilt them at his own expense. The grateful people
presented him with a magnificent pedestal, which he had placed in the
forum at Pozzuoli.
A. D. 27 Egypt was shaken, and the great statue of Memnon overthrown. In
A. D. 63 came a great earthquake in Central Italy.
The earthquake in A. D. 33, at the time of the crucifixion, was felt
throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily and Southern Italy. In the Syria
corpses were tumbled from their rock-hewn tombs. The town of Nicaea, in
Bithynia, was totally destroyed. How many perished in this widespread
shock is not known. Tradition has it that a fissure in a great rock,
which overhangs the shore at Gaeta, was made by this earthquake. Till
quite recently passing vessels were wont to salute the rock in
commemoration of the great event.
No city has suffered from these terrible throes of Mother Earth as much
as Antioch. In the year 115, the Emperor Trajan, extending his
territories to the wilder regions of the Caucasus, was in the city with
his army. There came heavy thunders, great winds, fearful subterranean
rumblings; the earth shook; down tottered temples, towns, palaces,
colonnades, statues, homes and huts, in irretrievable ruin. The Emperor
sprang from a window and ran for his life, like a peasant, through the
streets resounding with the groans and cries of the unfortunates buried
in the ruins. Mountains were rent asunder, rivers turned from their
courses, new streams were created, old valleys disappeared. Eighty
thousand people are believed to have perished at Antioch alone.
[Illustration: ANTIOCH.]
In A. D. 365 a fearful earthquake was felt throughout the entire
Mediterranean region. The sea rolled back, leaving fishes and vessels
high and dry; then, suddenly returning, it carried large boats two miles
inland. Fifty thousand people were lost at Alexandria. Shortly before, a
number of towns in Palestine had been destroyed. This second great
disaster shook all Asia Minor. In every town men began to talk, with
bated breath, of the fearful wrath the Lord manifested because of those
who had lent a willing ear to heretical doctrines. “This was why only
the priests and holy men of the church could appease the Divine wrath;
and if the town of Epidaurus had escaped the ruin which befell all the
other towns along the coast, it was because the inhabitants had taken
the statue of St. Hilary to the sea-shore. The Saint made the sign of
the cross, and the mountain of water, bending low before him, forthwith
receded.” Whence, it seems the Lord was supposed to have greater regard
for crooked saintly fingers than for heretical doctrines. Numerous were
the direful prodigies said to have accompanied this fearful shock.
The next century brought calamities once more upon Asia Minor. A series
of tremendous shocks were felt in 458, wrecking many of the finest
cities. The renowned Antioch, rebuilt in its pristine splendor, was once
more humbled in the dust. Eighty thousand people perished within its
walls; many thousands more in the adjacent regions. Probably one hundred
and twenty-five thousand in all were slain in this earthquake.
Years passed by, bringing, from time to time, minor shocks which
destroyed hundreds in different locations, but which passed with but
little notice amid so many greater disasters, and wars and rumors of
wars. Antioch had been gradually rebuilt, and was more splendid than
ever before. The first quarter of the sixth century was past. The time
of the great festival of the Ascension was at hand, A. D. 526. From all
the country round came people flocking to the celebration, to witness
the pageantry and procession. Without a moment’s warning, a great
earthquake came, as fearful as the shock four hundred and eleven years
before. The destruction was vastly greater. The tottering walls crushed
thousands in the crowded streets. Every avenue and alley became a
death-trap. There is not, in all the pages of history, record of an
earthquake of greater destructiveness. Gibbon estimates the number of
victims at two hundred and fifty thousand.
[Illustration: MASSIVE ARCHITECTURE WRECKED, ASIA MINOR.]
Nor was Antioch the only sufferer. The number of victims at other points
in Asia Minor might be fifty thousand more. The whole sixth century is
noted for the unusual number of appalling disasters of this sort which
occurred at different places in the then known world. Probably a million
people perished during this period in earthquakes alone. Such unwonted
havoc may well cause us to wonder what manner of convulsions were
occurring in the great volcanic regions of the Pacific and the then
unknown western world. If the same general rule prevailed then that has
been noticeable in more recent periods; if great convulsions were then,
as now, comparatively synchronous, it would be difficult to form any
adequate idea of the magnitude of the disturbances.
In 742 there was a tremendous earthquake in Egypt and Arabia, which
overturned scores of cities and villages, rent mountains asunder, buried
people in the wrecks of their dwellings, tossed the sea to and fro,
swallowed up towns, wiped out thriving seaports, and numbered its dead
by many tens of thousands. Four years later Jerusalem and all Syria
experienced a dreadful shock, which made terrible havoc. In 823, Central
Europe was shaken and Aix-la-chapelle nearly destroyed. In 860 Persia
and Syria were again shaken; and in 867, Antioch, after its three
centuries of comparative rest, was again ravaged by the destroyer. This
shock extended to Mecca, which was fearfully rent. Part of a mountain in
Syria was hurled into the sea. The century closed with a fearful
convulsion in far distant India, wherein no less than one hundred and
eighty thousand people were killed. Western Syria suffered again in 1169
and 1202. All the cities of the Mediterranean coast were shaken to
pieces, with the usual terrible loss of life. The valleys of the Lebanon
district were upheaved and altered throughout their whole extent.
[Illustration: RUINS NEAR CAIRO.]
Shock after shock came in the succeeding decades. One of these destroyed
forty thousand persons at Bagdad alone. In 1759, the long list of
catastrophes in Asia Minor was increased by one of the most terrible on
record. At the first shock the proud Antioch was once more totally
destroyed. Within the next forty-five days Baalbec, Sidon, Acre, Foussa,
Nazareth, Safit, Tripoli, and scores of lesser towns and villages were
almost blotted out. The horrors of that period are too awful for
description. Even more fearful, if possible, was the earthquake of 1822,
which once more made Antioch a shapeless mass of ruins. Aleppo, Djollib,
Riha, Gisser, Chugra, Dieskrich, and Armenas shared a like fate. In the
whole pashalic of Aleppo not a house or hut was left standing. Several
severe earthquakes have followed during the century. In one, we are told
the force of the shocks was so peculiar and powerful that in some places
stone walls were converted to heaps of dust or lime.
[Illustration: RUINS NEAR NINEVEH.]
This record, which is but a partial one, is enough to explain the
utterly ruined condition of Baalbec, Palmyra, and many other relics of
ancient grandeur. They have contended with a force more terrible than
ever was shot or shell of the cannonier. Thousands are familiar with the
views of such massive columns and walls of the Temple of Jupiter as are
still standing, eighty-four feet high from base to capital. The marvel
is, that after such a succession of fearful quakings there is the
slightest semblance of their former condition remaining.
Terrible as these calamities are, not a great deal beyond the bare fact
is known of many of them. To learn more exactly the dreadful
capabilities of this stupendous agent, it is necessary to examine
European and South American earthquakes that have come directly under
the observation of scientific men. From these we may learn more
particularly of the details of various fearful shocks.
In all Italy, so famed for its warmth and beauty, there is not a more
lovely district than Calabria, which lies in the Southern portion of the
peninsula. Yet no part of Italy has suffered such great calamities. An
earthquake in 1693 shook the whole of Calabria and Sicily, totally
destroying sixty towns and villages, and not fewer than one hundred
thousand people. Eighteen thousand perished at Catania alone.
Forty-eight years later a violent earthquake shattered one hundred and
ninety towns in Calabria and completely swallowed up Eufemia, leaving
only a stinking lake. But these were before the day of minute scientific
observation.
In 1783, a series of shocks, unequalled in recent years in violence,
began in Calabria and continued through four years. The scene was
visited and carefully examined by several able men, and from their
accounts a fine conception of the whole may be obtained.
The subterranean concussions were felt beyond the confines of Sicily;
but if the city of Oppido, in Calabria, be taken as the center, a circle
around it, whose radius is twenty-two miles, would include the space
which suffered the greatest calamities. Within this circle all the towns
and villages were almost entirely destroyed. A radius of seventy-two
miles would include the whole region affected.
It was a calm, hazy day in February, 1783. At a
[Illustration: REMAINS OF ANCIENT HEBREW MASONRY.]
quarter to one o’clock was felt the first shock, which “threw down, in
the space of two minutes, a greater part of the houses within the whole
space above described. The convulsive motion of the earth is said to
have resembled the rolling of the sea, and that in many instances it
produced swimming of the head, like sea-sickness. This rolling of the
surface, like the billows of the sea, was like that which would have
been produced by the agitation of a vast mass of liquid matter under the
ground.
In some walls which were shattered, the separate stones were parted from
the mortar, so as to leave an exact mold where they had rested, as
though the stone had been carefully raised from its bed in a
perpendicular direction; but in other instances the mortar was ground to
powder between the stones, as though they had been made to revolve on
each other.
It was found that the swelling, or wave-like motions, and those which
were called _vorticose_, or whirling, often produced the most singular
and unaccountable effects. Thus, in some streets in the town of
Monteleone, every house was thrown down, except one, and in some other
streets all but two or three;” and these were left uninjured, though
differing in no respect from others. In some houses which were wrecked,
deep foundations were thrown clear out of the ground, as though upheaved
by a direct lifting. Sometimes very massive buildings escaped; sometimes
they suffered most. Obelisks and pillars made in sections showed the
effects of the vorticose motion. The separate portions were partly
turned upon each other, without being thrown down.
The number and size of the fissures in the soil is astonishing. “In many
instances, these fissures were so wide, as in an instant to swallow up
men, trees, and even houses; and when the earth sunk down again, it
closed upon them so entirely, as not to leave the least vestige of what
had happened, nor were any signs of them ever discovered afterwards. In
the vicinity of Oppido, the center of these convulsions, many houses
were precipitated into the same great fissure, which immediately closed
over them; and,
[Illustration: GREAT EARTHQUAKE IN CALABRIA.]
in the same neighborhood, four farm-houses, several oilstores and
dwelling-houses were so entirely ingulfed that not a vestige of them was
seen afterwards.
In some instances these chasms did not close. In one district a ravine,
formed in this manner, a mile long, one hundred feet broad and thirty
feet deep, remained open; and in another a similar one remained,
three-quarters of a mile long, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and one
hundred feet deep; in another instance there remained such a chasm,
thirty feet wide and two hundred and twenty-five feet deep.” In another
place a gulf three hundred feet square was left open; again, we are told
of one seven hundred and fifty feet square. A calcareous mountain,
Zefirio, was rent in twain for half a mile. Similar effects were
observed in Sicily, where Messina was almost totally destroyed, and the
ruins devoured by the flames. “In various places the ground sunk down,
and lakes were formed, which, being fed by springs, have remained ever
since. The convulsions also removed immense masses of earth from the
sides of steep hills into the valleys below; so that, in many instances,
oaks, olive-orchards, vineyards and cultivated fields, were seen growing
at the bottoms of deep hollows, having been removed from the side hills
of the vicinity. In one instance, a mass of earth two hundred feet thick
and four hundred feet in diameter, being set in motion by one of the
first shocks, traveled four miles into the valley below.
The violence of the upward motion of the ground was singularly
illustrated by the inversion of heavy bodies lying on the surface, and
which can hardly be accounted for, except on the supposition that they
were actually thrown to a considerable distance into the air. Thus, in
some towns, a considerable portion of the flat pavingstones were found
with their lower sides uppermost. Mr.
[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF MESSINA.]
Lyell accounts for this effect by supposing that the stones were
propelled upwards by the momentum which they had acquired, and the
adhesion of one end of the mass being greater than the other, a rotary
motion had been communicated to them. It is difficult to conceive how a
whirling motion, so rapid as to produce such an effect, could have been
communicated to a whole town without producing some consequences still
more extraordinary.”
In many places in the plain of Rosarno, funnel-shaped pits were formed,
with crevices radiating in every direction like fractures in a pane of
glass. These were partially filled with sand and water.
Polistena was so absolutely wrecked that not the least semblance of the
plan of the town could be detected. Terranova was precipitated, with its
fourteen hundred inhabitants, three hundred and twenty-five feet into a
deep gorge, and turned upside down. Moluquello, on an opposite hill
between two streams, was rent in twain--one-half fell into the stream on
the right, the other on the left. There was left a ridge so narrow at
the top one could not keep his balance on it. Santa Cristena was hurled
from the top of a sandy hill into the valley beneath. Out of three
hundred and seventy-five towns and villages, three hundred and twenty
were destroyed. Two hundred and fifteen lakes and morasses were created
by displacements of the ground and blocking of water-courses. The
pestilence bred by these vied with the direct power of the earthquake.
Some slight disturbance was manifested on the day before the great
shock. Prince Scylla, an old man, warned his people to take to their
boats, and himself set the example. When the first shock came, many of
these people were sleeping in their boats near the shore, while the
others were on the shore at a little place elevated above
[Illustration: THE DISASTER OF SCYLLA.]
the sea. With this convulsion the earth rocked, and suddenly there was
precipitated a great mass of rock from Mount Jaci on the plain where the
people had taken refuge; and immediately after the water arose to a
great height above its ordinary level and swept away the sleeping
multitude. The wave then instantly retreated, but soon after returned
again with increased violence, bringing back many of the people and
animals which it had carried away. At the same time every boat in the
vicinity was overwhelmed, or dashed against the beach, and thus
destroyed. The Prince, who was an aged man, with thirteen hundred of his
people was swept away and perished in the sea. The total loss of life
resulting from this earthquake is estimated at eighty thousand. A shock
which came on the 4th of March was as violent as the first one. Eleven
hundred shocks were felt in two years.
Doubtless not a few of those who perished died merely from hunger or
confinement. Quite a number of those rescued after several days were
uninjured.
If it be true that prosperity shows men in their true colors, the
reverse is equally marked. It is hard to believe the tales of barbarous
inhumanity of the occasion. Says Dolomieu: “As egotism and the instinct
of self-preservation crushed all other feeling, no help was brought to
the unhappy victims buried beneath the ruins; yet many of them might
have been rescued. When calm was restored, the lower orders, succumbing
to the vilest passions of nature, thought of nothing but pillage.”
Like a certain class of ghouls who follow in the wake of armies to
enrich themselves by plundering the slain, “men might have been seen
scouring the fallen ruins, braving imminent danger, and treading under
foot dying persons who appealed piteously for help, in order to go and
plunder the houses of the wealthy. They robbed
[Illustration: LISBON BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE.]
the very injured, who would have paid them handsomely for rescuing them.
At Polistena a person of quality had been buried head downwards beneath
the ruins of his house, and when his servant saw what had happened he
actually stole the silver buckles off his shoes, while his legs were in
the air, and made off with them. The unfortunate gentleman managed,
however, to rescue himself from his perilous position. For several days
cries of anguish were heard coming from underground.” For days afterward
the fearful stench of putrefying corpses filled the atmosphere. Such
were the horrors of this memorable occasion. So sudden was the calamity
that many of those buried supposed only their own houses were overthrown
and wondered why their neighbors were so slow to aid them. Many suffered
greatly from thirst, and in consequence hardly felt the pinch of hunger,
though entombed several days.
One of the most notable of the earthquakes of the last century is the
one which overturned Lisbon, November 1, 1755. In extent of territory
affected, it is the greatest of any known; but because it bears the name
of the place where it was most violent, it is supposed by many to have
been confined to a single district.
The morning was magnificent. At 9:35 A.M. there was a loud underground
roar, like distant thunder, followed at once by a tremendous shock,
which overthrew churches, convents, and many others of the finest
buildings of the city. This shock lasted five seconds. There was two
minutes pause, during which thousands of shrieking people rushed about
the streets to escape the falling ruins. Then came a second shock, and
two minutes later a third. In five minutes the Portuguese capital had
become a ruin, filled with fifty thousand corpses.
The churches were filled with people, it being All Saints’ Day, and the
hour of high mass. The great cathedrals were but death-traps. All
apparatus that could be of use in the work of rescue was buried in the
wreck. The streets were crowded with sobbing multitudes, calling in vain
for friends and kin.
At the sea-shore was the magnificent quay, Cays de Prada. It was built
entirely of marble, and just finished at an immense expense; and on it,
after the first shock, a vast concourse of people had collected as a
place of safety, having left the city to escape the fall of the houses.
But it proved the most fatal spot in the vicinity; for at the next shock
the earth opened and instantly swallowed up the whole quay, with the
multitude which had there assembled; and so completely were the whole
retained by the closing of the earth, that not a single dead body ever
rose again to the surface. A great number of small boats and other
vessels near the quay, and filled with people as a place of safety, were
also precipitated into the yawning vortex; and it is stated that not a
single fragment of any of these boats was ever seen afterwards. When the
disaster was over, soundings were taken. Six hundred feet of water
rolled above the marble quay and its countless victims. St. Ubes was
swallowed up by sea-waves, while rocks fell from its promontory into the
sea.
Then the sea suddenly retired, leaving the bed of the harbor exposed. A
moment later a gigantic wave, fifty feet in height, rolled in upon the
doomed city.
Two hours later fire broke out in the wreck, and driven by a high wind,
swept the ruins, and also the houses left standing. The furious flames
raged three days, burning hundreds imprisoned in the wreck. Every
element seemed in conspiracy against the city.
In addition to threatened famine and pestilence among the survivors, the
rabble, as in Calabria, showed a disposition to indiscriminate plunder.
Upon this “the King gave orders immediately for gallows to be placed all
round the city, and after about one hundred executions, amongst which
were some English sailors, the evils stopped.” The King was very prompt
and energetic, initiating every practicable system of relief, and having
the really needy cared
[Illustration: EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.]
for at the expense of the State. Several lighter shocks were felt in the
succeeding two months. At the end of three months the Government began
to rebuild the town. In fifteen years it was well restored, and to-day
is one of the handsomest in Europe.
The immense area over which this earthquake was felt is very remarkable;
for not only was every part of Spain and Portugal convulsed, but the
shocks were perceived, with greater or less intensity, in England,
Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Corsica, the West
Indies, at Morocco and Algiers in Africa, and in a part of South
America. At Algiers the shock was so violent as to throw down many
buildings; and an oasis, with all its population, not far from Morocco,
was swallowed up. Fez and Mesquinez were destroyed, with fifteen
thousand people. The town of Setubal, seventeen miles from the Tagus and
twenty-two miles southeast of Lisbon, was almost entirely swallowed up.
The shock was almost as severe at Oporto as at Lisbon. The premonitory
roar was compared to the rattling of many carriages over a rough road.
The loftiest mountains were shaken, and many cleft or shattered. Masses
of rock tumbled from the crags into the valleys. At Colares, seventeen
miles from Lisbon, flames and smoke were seen to burst from the Alviras,
and also out of the sea. These phenomena continued for some days. A
chasm fifteen miles long opened in the Pyrenees. Towns were seriously
damaged in Switzerland, France and Italy. Vesuvius, in a state of
eruption for a period, suddenly ceased. The shock was also felt by ships
far at sea, and, in several instances, the concussion was such as to
make the people suppose their vessels had struck on a rock. In one
instance, it is said that the people on board a vessel off the West
Indies were thrown up a foot and a half from the deck. This circumstance
may be
[Illustration: RUINED CATHEDRAL, LISBON.]
accounted for by the inelasticity of water; so that a violent and sudden
movement of the bottom of the ocean would be communicated to the surface
and to the ship, through the medium of the fluid, with nearly the same
force as though the vessel had been on the ground itself.
Quite as remarkable was the immense wave produced. At Cadiz its height
was sixty feet, and the damage in proportion. Rolling to the northward
it inflicted vast injury upon Cornwall, England. At the Canaries and
Azores the waves rose repeatedly to an immense height; and at Madeira
the injury was still greater. In less than an hour the wave had traveled
to Leyden. Norway and Sweden felt its presence, even to the recesses of
the Gulf of Finland. On the western border of the Atlantic, among the
lesser Antilles, where the tide scarcely exceeds twenty-nine inches, a
black wall of water twenty-two feet high rushed upon the coasts. The
steep and rocky islet of Stabia was dashed over by the waves. In
Martinique the water rose to the roofs of the houses, and then receded
from the shore for more than a mile. The unusual commotion stirred up
the bituminous sediment of the sea bottom, and at Barbadoes the waves
were in consequence black as ink.
There have been numerous earthquakes since in Europe which must pass
without mention. One in 1817 completely destroyed Vostitza, a town in
Greece not far from the site of ancient Helice. Another well-remembered
one in 1855 desolated the Canton of Valais in Switzerland. This country
has had numerous shocks--sixteen hundred or more, in the past few
centuries, and once or twice Basle has been almost totally destroyed.
Valais itself is a beautiful vale accessible only by a cleft in a
mountain range eighty-five hundred feet deep. Numerous small towns and
hamlets are scattered about the vale, and the precipitous slopes around
are dotted with shepherds’ and hunters’ huts.
On July 25, 1855, after an extremely hot morning, the people were
astounded by a great earthquake--an abrupt and vertical shock. Then came
wave-like motions throwing every one prostrate. Houses tumbled in all
directions. People were rolled about like logs of wood. Nearly every
village in the canton was destroyed. Great landslips and avalanches
rushed down from the hills. So tremendous was the shock that the
mountain tops could be seen to sway to and fro. Crags and blocks of ice
fell into the vales, crushing and grinding. The terrible uproar sounded
as though the whole range of the Alps was about to collapse. The
terrible shocks were felt at Lyons, at Paris, at Heidelberg, at Milan,
at Genoa. Lisbon had no severer shock. And this great convulsion, that
dandled mountains as though mere puppets, and destroyed towns and
villages by the score--killed one person. It is one of the most
remarkable occurrences in European history.
Among the more destructive recent shocks in Europe are those of 1881-84.
Chio, one of the most beautiful islands of the Grecian archipelago, and
the home of a thrifty and enterprising people, was visited by an
earthquake on April 3, 1881. The whole city, with its hospitals,
schools, libraries and works of art, was laid in ruins in a few seconds.
This convulsion forms a strange contrast to the more violent one just
described. Numerous adjacent villages were overthrown; and after the
shock was past it was found that more than five thousand persons were
killed and ten thousand others more or less injured. After making all
possible efforts at restoration, the authorities were compelled to pull
down many still tottering walls and scatter disinfectants over the wreck
to
[Illustration: SCENE AT CHIO.]
avoid an epidemic from the thousand corpses left beneath the ruin.
The entire adjacent coast of Asia Minor was more or less shaken, and
several scores of people were killed in some seaport towns. The shocks
continued several days, each being accompanied by a peculiar
subterranean roaring. Two years later, ere the town was fairly rebuilt,
there was another earthquake, which, however, did more damage in Asia
Minor than in Chio.
But the most striking example of great damage done by an earthquake in a
very small tract is the case of the island of Ischia. This tiny islet,
the Imarina of Horace and Virgil, was well known to the Greeks, who at
one time endeavored to establish themselves upon it, but were finally
driven away by repeated volcanic outbursts. Since the activity of
Vesuvius, Ischia has remained quiet, though a dozen extinct craters bear
witness to its former fury. Its highest point is two thousand, seven
hundred and seventy-two feet above the sea, while the entire island is
but six miles in diameter. It is evidently cast up by an ancient,
submarine volcano.
Situated a few miles from Naples, Ischia has for years been a favorite
summer resort for the Italians of the neighboring coast. A score of
little towns and villages dot its shores and hills, and the view of the
Gulf of Naples, Baiae, and adjacent islands and coasts forms one of the
most beautiful landscapes in the world.
After its abandonment by the Greek colonists the islet was quiet for
sixteen centuries. In 1302 an eruption and earthquake occasioned
considerable loss of life and property. After that, though the main
peak, Epomeo, has been occasionally muttering and fuming, no serious
disturbance occurred for nearly six centuries. The subterranean heat
occasions numerous hot springs, the water reaching a temperature of 178
degrees. These baths, and the abundance of choice fruits afforded by the
island, afford additional attractions to visitors, and the twenty-five
thousand inhabitants would seem to have an earthly paradise.
March 4, 1881, the people were suddenly roused from their slumbering
security by two sharp shocks half an hour apart, which overthrew seven
hundred houses in the little town of Casamicciola, killing one hundred
and twenty-six people and wounding one hundred and seventy-seven more.
The only premonition was that a few minutes before the hot springs
suddenly reached the boiling point.
Yet this disaster was comparatively insignificant when we consider the
one of July 28, 1883.
It was the height of the summer season. The little island was thronged
with pleasure-seeking visitors. The night was dark and cloudy; the sea
was unusually agitated. The small theatre at Casamicciola was filled
with an animated throng, who cared not for the boding storm. The play
opened with an earthquake scene. As the clock pointed to 9:32, the
_Punchinello_ rushed on the stage, shouting, “Un terremoto! un
terremoto! alla mare! alla mare!” (An earthquake! an earthquake! to the
sea! to the sea!) The audience thought it was part of the play; but ere
they could applaud the vigorous acting, the lights were out, a
thundering sound was heard, and the crashing roof was upon them. The
appalling roar was followed by profound silence, as clouds of stifling
dust were whirled up by the wind. Then in the darkness were heard the
cries of terrified people, seeking one another in the gloom, and groping
for the shore as in the days of Pompeii.
A visitor who was in the theater said, that at the first noise, which
resembled the discharge of a heavy battery of artillery, “not a cry was
uttered, though terror was depicted in every countenance; but when the
first shock was followed by several others, a shriek of despair went up
from every lip. The lights went out, pieces of timber were falling all
about us, and cries of terror were succeeded by shrieks of pain from
those who had been injured. It was a trying moment. When the shocks
ceased, I crawled, like many others, out of the ruined building in order
to reach the shore. The dust was literally blinding. Several times I
stumbled over heaps of masonry and rubbish from which heart-rendering
groans and shrieks were proceeding. Upon the shore I encountered many
others as frightened as I was, and endeavoring to escape in fear of
there being more shocks. Seeing that all remained quiet, we retraced our
steps in order to relieve the injured. But it was not until the morning,
upon the arrival of the authorities and the troops sent from Naples,
that it was possible to take any effective steps for surmounting the
difficulties by which we were surrounded. The firemen, assisted by
volunteers, then set to work energetically to clear away the rubbish,
laying the dead bodies in a row, and handing the injured over to the
doctors. It was necessary to go to work very carefully, so as not to
injure those still unhurt; and so the work continued very slowly, during
which time we felt our heart-strings torn by the piteous appeals for
relief. Some people were covered by so much debris that it took hours to
reach them, and when we did so, some of them had succumbed to their
injuries, while others had gone out of their minds. The dense clouds of
dust had choked many of those who were not killed on the spot.”
Some strange scenes occurred; and there were instances of remarkable
coolness. An Italian professor of surgery who had taken his child to the
theatre, coolly took out his watch at the first crash, and noting the
exact time, sat
[Illustration: THE PANIC AT CASAMICCIOLA.]
perfectly still while the surging crowd endeavored to escape. There he
sat with his child till morning, when the light enabled him to find his
way out of the wreck.
The sea shore was a weird spectacle. Lighted up by a pile of blazing
drift might be seen scores of naked children, and grown persons in their
night clothes, scurrying wildly about. An eye-witness tells of many
crazy with fear and grief. All night long the wreck resounded with
groans and cries. One woman, whom he heard continually moaning, and
crying “My children! my children!” was found at daybreak on the edge of
a shattered terrace, and clad only in a chemise. Wondering what he could
say by way of consolation, he chanced to observe two little ones playing
not far away amid a tottering wreck that threatened at every moment to
crush them. They were hers.
Further down a woman’s jewelled arm and shoulder protruded from the
wreck, while her husband, buried nearly, kept crying “save her, never
mind about me.” As a helping hand was reached to her a sudden landslip
crushed out the remaining life.
A young English lady sat playing a funeral march. An Italian count
sprang up, saying, “I cannot stand such music!” Just as he cleared the
door the hotel fell in ruins behind him. The young lady was found dead
at the piano.
For days the work went on, pressed by the energy of the Italian
government. All the native police had been killed in the wreck. King
Humbert in person visited the scene and had the work pressed as rapidly
as possible.
There was no more complete wreck of any town than of Lacco Ameno. Of
fifteen hundred and ninety-three people but five escaped. At
Casamicciola but one house was left intact. Not a few houses in the
former place were swallowed up in fissures. Floria was totally
destroyed. Yet the largest town on the island, Ischia, with the adjacent
villages, was scarcely hurt; and at Naples, on the mainland, the news of
the catastrophe was a complete surprise. Yet on the half of the islet
that was most severely shaken the earthquake numbered four thousand
victims. A greater contrast to the great Valais earthquake could hardly
be imagined.
Still more recent is the catastrophe of Southern Spain, one of the
loveliest regions in the world. This district has several times been
shaken; but notably at the time of the Lisbon earthquake, when so much
damage was done by shocks and sea-waves at Cadiz; again in 1833, when in
the single province of Murcia more than four thousand houses were
destroyed, with hundreds of the inhabitants. Again the ground was in a
state of constant tremor from November, 1855, to March, 1856.
But more severe than these was the shock of 1884. About the end of
November slight vibrations were perceptible in Spain, Portugal, Italy,
and Southern France. The shocks did not manifest especial intensity at
any especial locality, and no attention was paid to them, as such
occurrences are so frequent that they cannot be regarded as indicative
of greater shocks to come. For example, there were forty-six hundred and
twenty shocks recorded in different portions of the earth during the
years 1850-57; yet none of these were followed by earthquakes of great
severity. So in the case of the November shocks of 1884, no one seemed
concerned to know where they originated, or if they boded evil.
But on Christmas day, 1884, there came, a little past nine at night, an
intense subdued roar like that of a hurricane; and at once the plateaux
of Andalusia, the mountains of Murcia, and the sunny plains of Granada,
Jaen
[Illustration: GREAT EARTHQUAKE IN ANDALUSIA.]
and Cordova shook from one end to the other. At Seville the terrified
people rushed into the streets and camped there all night; but this city
did not suffer so much as in the shock of 1755. In Granada the motions
followed in rapid succession for several weeks; but though many other
buildings were overthrown, the far-famed Alhambra was not injured.
Twenty thousand people camped without the city gates.
The shocks were much severest in the mountainous districts. Villages and
hamlets in ravines and along mountain slopes were speedily destroyed.
The town of Alhama lost thirteen hundred and twenty houses at the first
shock. Five hundred and seventy-six bodies were taken out of the ruins.
Two hundred and eighty houses were overthrown by subsequent shocks.
Abumelas lost five hundred and seventeen people, and four hundred and
sixty-three houses out of four hundred and seventy-seven. More than
three thousand houses were wrecked throughout Andalusia and Granada.
Fifty-six towns and hamlets were greatly damaged, twenty of them
entirely destroyed. Parts of mountain slopes slid slowly into the
valleys. Deep crevices, like those of the Calabrian earthquakes, were
opened in some localities. One of these is two miles long and of unknown
depth. Boiling water burst from fissures in the mountains. The course of
the river Gogollas was changed. Portions of the country were upheaved;
others depressed. Shocks were felt at sea near the Azores.
Several thousands were killed and wounded, and the survivors suffered
much from cold and hunger. The young King Alfonso took active part in
the work of relief; but so numerous were the dead that many of them had
to be buried in heaps or covered with quick-lime. There was not time to
bury all properly.
Such are details of the more prominent European earthquakes. There have
been others of almost equal importance; but three years ago a severe
earthquake killed two thousand or more in the Italian Riviera; but the
cases given well illustrate the destruction wrought in Europe, and other
regions claim attention.