Today’s Trembling Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
By the mid-18th century, Lisbon was at the center of a considerable Portuguese empire, with possessions in Africa, South America and the Far East. It was a city of some 275,000 people with a major port on the estuary of the Tagus River and had many fine buildings including the royal palace and a splendid new opera house.
Earth tremors were not unusual in Portugal, but there was no reason for the people to fear a major disturbance as they went to Mass on All Saints Day in the great cathedral and the many churches in the city. At 9:30 a.m.it must have seemed as though the wrath of God had descended upon them: for several minutes the earth shook with a loud sound like thunder. The noise of falling buildings added to the uproar.
After a pause there was a second tremor, then a third. By this time a dense cloud of smoke had risen, darkening the city and alarming the survivors even further. This was bad enough, but there was worse to follow. Fires broke out in many parts of the city, destroying buildings that had survived the earthquake, and shortly afterwards people in the harbor areas were terrified to see the waters rush out, exposing the seabed for over half a mile offshore. This phenomenon has become well-known in earthquakes affecting coast areas.
Those watching this awful unnatural scene had worse to face, however. The retreating waters stopped, turned around and raced back to shore with exceptional force as a vast wave. The Lisbon wave was said to be 50 feet high when it smashed into the waterfront area of the city, destroying everything in its path and drowning hundreds if not thousands of people who had not the slightest hope of escape.
The great writer Voltaire used the Lisbon earthquake as the basis for a scene from Candide. His description is by no mean overstated: “… they felt the earth tremble beneath them. The sea boiled up in the harbor and broke the ships which lay at anchor. Whirlwinds of flame and ashes covered the streets and squares. Houses came crashing down. Thirty thousand men, women and children were crushed under the ruins… the terrified Candide stood trembling with fear and confusion. ‘If this is the best of all possible worlds’ he said to himself, ‘what can the rest be like?'”
Although there is no exact measurement for it, this was clearly a very substantial earthquake. Its shock waves were felt as far away as Scotland, where water levels on major lochs rose and fell by several feet. The same happened in Switzerland, and on the canals of the Netherlands, the disturbance was great enough to cause large barges to snap their anchor cables. Considerable damage was caused to towns and cities in North Africa, particularly around the town of Fez in Morocco, where death and destruction on a large scale was reported. A tsunami wave crossed the Atlantic and struck the islands of the Lesser Antilles, reaching over 20 feet high in places.
Following the main tremors came a whole series of aftershocks lasting for many months. It is estimate that there were as many as 500 of these shocks, keeping the Portuguese people in a state of fear and alarm. In July 1756 the British Ambassador in Lisbon received a letter from his counterpart in Madrid asking: “Will your disturbed earth never be quiet?”
In Lisbon, the effects were catastrophic. Of the 20,000 or so houses in the city, less than 3,000 were left standing. The palace and the opera house were both destroyed by fire. Churches and other public buildings were flattened, and warehouses full of fine goods were burnt to the ground, ruining their owners. The city had virtually to be rebuilt from scratch. Many people were burned alive. Numbers of dead were never accurately recorded, but it is thought that Voltaire’s figure is some way out and that at least 60,000 people failed to survive the disaster—over a fifth of the entire population. Large numbers died in churches where they were attending Mass. Lisbon’s great cathedral was reduced to a ruin, and hundreds died there when huge pillars and sections of roof fell on them.
As it happened on a Sunday, and All Saints Day at that, questions were raised as to how a merciful God could have allowed such a thing to happen, killing so many innocent people, including children. Many pamphlets, tracts and even books on the subject were produced. The priests, naturally, were telling their congregations that God was angry with them for their sinful lives—Lisbon had been a rich city of many pleasures, Candide’s “the best of all possible worlds”—and that they must repent.
The earthquake was extensively studied by scientists, who tried to point out—without total success—that earthquakes were natural phenomena. In Candide, Voltaire has the character Pangloss pontificating on the subject, saying “the earthquake is nothing new. The town of Lima in America experienced the same shock last year. The same causes produce the same effects. There is certainly a vein of sulphur running under the earth from Lima to Lisbon.”
Lisbon has suffered a number of tremors in the past 240 years, but none nearly as severe as the quake which caused such fearful damage on All Saints Day in 1755.
Depiction of the Great Lisbon Earthquake by Granger
Culled from: Catastrophes and Disasters
Sideshow “Freak” Du Jour!
Unidentified Living Skeleton
Culled from: Monsters: Human Freaks in America’s Gilded Age