The 1755 Lisbon earthquake: the first modern natural disaster?

Imagine that you are in Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday, November 1, 1755. It is the early morning of All Saints' Day, a feast day that celebrates all the saints of the Catholic Church. This day should have been a solemn day with church masses and visits to cemeteries to offer flowers. A combination of ancient traditions with standard Christian practices. The people should have been preparing for a holy day, but the upcoming events were far from holy.

At around 9:40 a.m., everything started shaking as three sets of tremors hit the city over a period of 3 to 6 minutes. People fled the streets in different directions as panic spread. Some fled to the docks while others took shelter in their homes. However, since it was a feast day, many people were already crowded into the churches to attend mass. These ancient medieval buildings were not designed to withstand the shock, and many collapsed, killing or seriously injuring worshipers.

At the same time, fires broke out throughout the city as flames used for cooking fell into lanterns or candles (especially in churches) or ignited falling debris. As the fire escalated, the wind quickly spread to other buildings.

According to an eyewitness account by Reverend Charles Davy, who was in the city at the time, the earthquake covered the city in a cloud of dust that darkened the sky while the air was filled with the sounds of people shouting “Misericordia meu Dios!” “(Mercy, my God!)

By the time the earthquakes were over, the city was already in chaos and many lives had been lost. But worse was to come.

About 40 to 45 minutes after the quake ended, those huddled at the docks for safety witnessed something unsettling. The tide was going out, and people, Davey claims, began shouting “the sea is coming, we'll all be lost.”

Then a 20-foot (6 m) tsunami washed ashore as it rushed into the Tagua River, claiming hundreds of lives.

The impact of what is now referred to as the Great Lisbon Earthquake was devastating. Up to 50,000 people (although some estimates are much lower) may have been killed by the event and the tsunami that followed. Thousands of people fled the city in the aftermath, especially after many buildings and homes were destroyed. Even the royal palace was destroyed, along with vast amounts of historical and cultural material in the form of art, literature and architecture.

According to recent research, the quake occurred somewhere offshore along a fault at the boundary of the mid-Atlantic tectonic plates, although the exact location is still debated. The tsunami that struck Lisbon also moved west across the Atlantic, with a 13-foot (4 m) wave hitting the Caribbean island of Martinique 10 hours later.

It is estimated that the worst of the three earthquakes had a magnitude between 8.5 and 9.0, but of course this is only a rough idea since modern seismology did not exist at that time.

Although the story of Lisbon is well known, it was not the only place to suffer as a result of the earthquake. The earthquake also struck other regions in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as parts of North Africa, such as Morocco and Algeria. In fact, the devastation may have killed another 10,000 people in Morocco.

According to some researchers, the Great Lisbon Earthquake is now considered the first modern natural disaster, with contemporaries recognizing its causes as lying in the natural world rather than the supernatural. It remains one of the worst natural disasters to hit Europe in the past 500 years.

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