1755 Lisbon earthquake

Coordinates: 36°N 11°W / 36°N 11°W / 36; -11
Listen to this article
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

1755 Lisbon earthquake
1755 Lisbon earthquake is located in Atlantic Ocean
1755 Lisbon earthquake
Local date1 November 1755 (1755-11)
Local time09:40
Magnitude7.7–9.0 Mw (est.)
Epicenter36°N 11°W / 36°N 11°W / 36; -11
About 200 km (110 nmi; 120 mi) west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent and about 290 km (160 nmi; 180 mi) southwest of Lisbon
FaultAzores–Gibraltar Transform Fault[1]
Max. intensityXI (Extreme)[2]
Casualties12,000–50,000 deaths

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the

Seismologists estimate the Lisbon earthquake had a magnitude of 7.7[4][5] or greater[6] on the moment magnitude scale, with its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 km (110 nmi; 120 mi) west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent, a cape in Algarve
region, and about 290 km (160 nmi; 180 mi) southwest of Lisbon.

Chronologically, it was the third known large-scale earthquake to hit the city (following those of 1321 and 1531). Estimates place the death toll in Lisbon around 12,000, making it one of the largest earthquakes in history.

The earthquake accentuated political tensions in Portugal and profoundly disrupted the

Enlightenment philosophers, and inspired major developments in theodicy. As the first earthquake studied scientifically for its effects over a large area, it led to the birth of modern seismology and earthquake engineering
.

Earthquake and tsunami

1755 copper engraving showing Lisbon in flames and a tsunami overwhelming the ships in the harbor

The earthquake struck on the morning of 1 November 1755, All Saints' Day. Contemporary reports state that the earthquake lasted from three and a half to six minutes, causing fissures 5 metres (16 ft) wide in the city center. Survivors rushed to the open space of the docks for safety and watched as the sea receded, revealing a plain of mud littered with lost cargo and shipwrecks. Approximately 40 minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami engulfed the harbor and downtown area, rushing up the Tagus river[7] "so fast that several people riding on horseback ... were forced to gallop as fast as possible to the upper grounds for fear of being carried away." It was followed by two more waves. Candles lit in homes and churches all around the city for All Saints' Day were knocked over, starting a fire that developed into a firestorm which burned for hours in the city, asphyxiating people up to 30 metres (98 ft) from the blaze.[8]

A contemporary ex-voto depicts the rescue of a three-year-old from under fallen masonry, under the watchful gaze of Our Lady of the Star

Lisbon was not the only

Salamanca, Spain. In Setúbal, parts of the Fort of São Filipe de Setúbal
were damaged.

On the island of Madeira, Funchal and many smaller settlements suffered significant damage. Almost all of the ports in the Azores archipelago suffered most of their destruction from the tsunami, with the sea penetrating about 150 metres (490 ft) inland. Current and former Portuguese towns in northern Africa were also affected by the earthquake. Places such as Ceuta (ceded by Portugal to Spain in 1668) and Mazagon, where the tsunami hit hard the coastal fortifications of both towns, in some cases going over it, and flooding the harbor area, were affected. In Spain, the tsunamis swept the Andalusian Atlantic Coast, damaging the city of Cadiz.

2016 animation from
NOAA
Calculated travel times (in hours) for the tsunami waves of 1 November 1755

Shocks from the earthquake were felt throughout Europe[11][12] as far as Finland and in North Africa, and according to some sources even in Greenland[13] and the Caribbean.[14] Tsunamis as tall as 20 metres (66 ft) swept along the coast of North Africa, and struck Martinique and Barbados across the Atlantic Ocean. A three-metre (ten-foot) tsunami hit Cornwall on the southern British coast. Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, was also hit, resulting in partial destruction of the "Spanish Arch" section of the city wall. In County Clare, Aughinish Island was created when a low lying connection to the mainland was washed away. At Kinsale, several vessels were whirled round in the harbor, and water poured into the marketplace.[14]

In 2015, it was determined that the tsunami waves may have reached the coast of Brazil, then a colony of Portugal. Letters sent by Brazilian authorities at the time of the earthquake describe damage and destruction caused by gigantic waves.[15]

Although seismologists and geologists have always agreed that the epicenter was in the Atlantic to the west of the Iberian Peninsula, its exact location has been a subject of considerable debate. Early hypotheses had proposed the

tectonic event.[1]

Casualties and damage

Carmo Convent
, which was destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake.

Economic historian Álvaro Pereira estimated that of Lisbon's population at the time of approximately 200,000 people, 30,000–40,000 were killed. Another 10,000 may have died in Morocco. A 2009 study of contemporary reports relating to the 1 November event found them vague and difficult to separate from reports of another local series of earthquakes on 18–19 November.[16] Pereira estimated the total death toll in Portugal, Spain and Morocco from the earthquake and the resulting fires and tsunami at 40,000 to 50,000 people.[17]

Eighty-five percent of Lisbon's buildings were destroyed, including famous palaces and libraries, as well as most examples of Portugal's distinctive 16th-century

Carmo Convent, which were preserved to remind Lisboners of the destruction. Most of the documentation of the 1722 Algarve earthquake
sent to Lisbon for archiving became lost after the fire that followed the 1755 earthquake.

Relief and reconstruction efforts

Executions in the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake. At least 34 looters were hanged in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster. As a warning against looting, King Joseph I of Portugal ordered gallows to be constructed in several parts of the city.[19]

The royal family escaped unharmed from the catastrophe: King

Ajuda Palace, which still stands on the site of the old tented camp. Like the king, the prime minister Sebastião de Melo (1st Marquis of Pombal) survived the earthquake. When asked what was to be done, Pombal reportedly replied "bury the dead and heal the living",[20] and set about organizing relief and rehabilitation efforts. Firefighters were sent to extinguish the raging flames, and teams of workers and ordinary citizens were ordered to remove the thousands of corpses before disease could spread. Contrary to custom and against the wishes of the Church, many corpses were loaded onto barges and buried at sea beyond the mouth of the Tagus. To prevent disorder in the ruined city, the Portuguese Army was deployed and gallows were constructed at high points around the city to deter looters; more than thirty people were publicly executed.[21]
The army prevented many able-bodied citizens from fleeing, pressing them into relief and reconstruction work.

A project proposed that a new royal palace be built in Campo de Ourique as the new royal residence in 1760, but was later abandoned due to a lack of priority or interest in a palace being built in the Campo de Ourique neighborhood of Lisbon.

The king and the prime minister immediately launched efforts to rebuild the city. On December 4, 1755, a little more than a month after the earthquake, Manuel da Maia, chief engineer to the realm, presented his plans for the re-building of Lisbon. Maia presented four options from abandoning Lisbon to building a completely new city. The first, and cheapest, plan was to rebuild the old city using recycled materials. The second and third plans proposed widening certain streets. The fourth option boldly proposed razing the entire Baixa quarter and "laying out new streets without restraint". This last option was chosen by the king and his minister.[22]

Pombaline Lower Town

In less than a year, the city was cleared of debris. Keen to have a new and perfectly ordered city, the king commissioned the construction of big squares, rectilinear, large avenues and widened streets – the new mottos of Lisbon.

The

Vila Real de Santo António in Algarve
, were also rebuilt along Pombaline principles.

The Casa Pia, a Portuguese institution founded by Maria I (known as A Pia, "Maria the Pious"), and organized by Police Intendant Pina Manique in 1780, was founded following the social disarray of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Effect on society, economy, and philosophy

The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and

Roman Catholic country. Theologians and philosophers focused and speculated on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgment.[23]

Economy

A 2009 study estimated that the earthquake cost between 32 and 48 per cent of Portugal's GDP.[24] Also, "in spite of strict controls, prices and wages remained volatile in the years after the tragedy. The recovery from the earthquake also led to a rise in the wage premium of construction workers. More significantly, the earthquake became an opportunity to reform the economy and to reduce the economic semi-dependency vis-à-vis Britain."[24]

Philosophy

Allegory of the 1755 Earthquake, by João Glama Ströberle (who depicted himself standing on a pile of rubble on the lower-right corner). In the upper-left corner is an angel holding a fiery sword, personifying divine judgement.

The earthquake and its aftermath strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European

Theodor Adorno wrote, "[t]he earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the theodicy of Leibniz" (Negative Dialectics 361). Jean-Jacques Rousseau was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life.[25]

Immanuel Kant published three separate texts in 1756 on the Lisbon earthquake.[26] As a younger man, fascinated with the earthquake, he collected all the information available in news pamphlets and formulated a theory of the causes of earthquakes. Kant's theory, which involved shifts in huge caverns filled with hot gases, though inaccurate, was one of the first systematic attempts to explain earthquakes in natural rather than supernatural terms. According to Walter Benjamin, Kant's slim early book on the earthquake "probably represents the beginnings of scientific geography in Germany. And certainly the beginnings of seismology".

Werner Hamacher has claimed that the earthquake's consequences extended into the vocabulary of philosophy, making the common metaphor of firm "grounding" for philosophers' arguments shaky and uncertain: "Under the impression exerted by the Lisbon earthquake, which touched the European mind in one [of] its more sensitive epochs, the metaphor of ground and tremor completely lost their apparent innocence; they were no longer merely figures of speech" (263). Hamacher claims that the foundational certainty of René Descartes' philosophy began to shake following the Lisbon earthquake.[27]

Politics

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal

The earthquake had a major impact on politics. The prime minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, was the favourite of the king, but the aristocracy despised him as an upstart son of a country squire. The prime minister, in turn, disliked the old nobles, whom he considered corrupt and incapable of practical action. Before 1 November 1755, there had been a constant struggle for power and royal favour, but the competent response of the Marquis of Pombal effectively severed the power of the old aristocratic factions. However, the silent opposition and resentment of King Joseph I began to rise, which would culminate with the attempted assassination of the king in 1758 and the subsequent elimination of the powerful Duke of Aveiro and the Távora family.[clarification needed]

In 1752, a Sebastianist predicted that a terrible earthquake would destroy Lisbon on All Saints' Day. After the 1755 Lisbon earthquake struck on All Saints' Day, there was a surge of converts to Sebastianism.[28]

Development of seismology

The prime minister's response was not limited to the practicalities of reconstruction. He ordered a query sent to all parishes of the country regarding the earthquake and its effects. Questions included the following:

  • At what time did the earthquake begin, and how long did the earthquake last?
  • Did you perceive the shock to be greater from one direction than another? Example, from north to south? Did buildings seem to fall more to one side than the other?
  • How many people died and were any of them distinguished?
  • Did the sea rise or fall first, and how many hands did it rise above the normal?
  • If fire broke out, how long did it last and what damage did it cause?[29]

The answers to those and other questions are still archived in the

Torre do Tombo, the national historical archive. Studying and cross-referencing the priests' accounts, modern scientists were able to reconstruct the event from a scientific perspective. Without the questionnaire designed by the Marquis of Pombal, that would have been impossible. Because Pombal was the first to attempt an objective scientific description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake, he is regarded as a forerunner of modern seismological scientists.[30]

In popular culture

The 18th-century English Baroque composer Richard Carter composed and published an ode on the earthquake.[31]

A fictionalised version of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake features as a main plot element of the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed Rogue, developed and published by Ubisoft.[32] Notably, a similar earthquake occurs earlier in the story in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and possibly coincides with a real-world earthquake recorded there in 1751.[33]

The album 1755 by the Portuguese Gothic metal band Moonspell is a concept album detailing the story of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The album is entirely sung in Portuguese and explores not only the history but also its effects on Portuguese society, culture and spirituality.

The Lisbon earthquake is vividly depicted in Avram Davidson's Masters of the Maze, one of the many times and places visited by the book's time-traveling protagonists.

The board game Lisboa was created in 2017 by Vital Lacerda and focuses on the reconstruction of Lisbon after the earthquake.[34]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Zitellini N. et al., The tectonic source of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami. Anali di Geofisica 1999; 42(1): 49. Online PDF. Archived 11 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine 27 May 2009.
  2. ^ Between History and Periodicity: Printed and Hand-Written News in 18th-Century Portugal
  3. S2CID 213399185
    .
  4. ^ "Magnitude of Great Lisbon Earthquake may have been lower than previous estimates". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  5. ^ "The Lisbon Earthquake". VolcanoCafe. 6 May 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  6. ^ Viana-Baptista MA, Soares PM. Tsunami propagation along Tagus estuary (Lisbon, Portugal) preliminary results. Science of Tsunami Hazards 2006; 24(5):329 Online PDF. Archived 11 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine 27 May 2009.
  7. ^ "'This Gulf Of Fire' Examines The Lisbon, Portugal, Earthquake In 1755". NPR. 2 November 2015.
  8. ^ "Muralhas da Cidade da Covilhã | www.visitportugal.com". www.visitportugal.com. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  9. ^ "O terramoto de 1755 ao redor da Gardunha". Jornal do Fundão. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  10. JSTOR 104951
  11. The Leads
    " in Venice and specifically states they were the same ones that destroyed Lisbon
  12. Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon
    . 14th ed., Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna 1894; Vol. 6, p. 248
  13. ^ a b Lyell, Charles. Principles of Geology. 1830. Vol. 1, chapter 25, p. 439 Online electronic edition. Archived 20 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine 21 May 2009.
  14. Rede Globo
    . Retrieved 27 October 2015.
  15. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.
    2009; 9: 725–738.
  16. ^ Pereira (2006), pp. 8–9, 33–9921.
  17. ^ "A Comprehensive Report of the Great Lisbon Earthquake". Archived from the original on 22 December 2012. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  18. ^ Dynes, Russell R. (2003). The Lisbon Earthquake in 1755: The First Modern Disaster.
  19. ^ T. D. Kendrick. The Lisbon Earthquake. p. 75. Kendrick writes that the remark is apocryphal and is attributed to other sources in anti-Pombal literature.
  20. ^ Gunn (2008), p. 77.
  21. ^ Shrady, The Last Day pp. 152–155.
  22. ^ The Lisbon Earthquake. J.B. Lippincott Company. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
  23. ^
    S2CID 29519289
    .
  24. ^ "Japan tsunami is small compared to five of world's biggest tsunamis". Christian Science Monitor. 28 October 2010.
  25. ^ See:
  26. .
  27. .
  28. ^ Shrady, The Last Day, pp.145–146
  29. .
  30. .
  31. ^ McWhertor, Michael (5 August 2014). "Assassin's Creed Rogue confirmed by Ubisoft - here's the first trailer". Polygon. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  32. .
  33. ^ "Lisboa Deluxe Edition (Includes Upgrade Pack)". eaglegames.net. 2021. Retrieved 23 July 2022.

References

Further reading

External links

Listen to this article (16 minutes)
Spoken Wikipedia icon
Audio help · More spoken articles
)