Digitalphilologie

Titel

An Account of the Earthquake in South America, on the 26th March, 1812

Jahr

1820

Ort

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Nachweis

in: National Recorder 3:3 (15. Januar 1820), S. 42-43.

Sprache

Englisch

Typografischer Befund

Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung.

Identifikation

Textnummer Druckausgabe: III.62
Dateiname: 1819-Baron_Humboldts_Personal_Heft1-09-neu

Statistiken

Seitenanzahl:	2
Spaltenanzahl:	3
Zeichenanzahl:	6596

Weitere Fassungen
	Baron Humboldt’s Last Volume. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. Vol. 4. London, 1819 (New York City, New York, 1819, Englisch)
	The gymnotus, or electrical eel (New York City, New York, 1819, Englisch)
	Humboldt’s Travels (London, 1819, Englisch)
	Electrical eels (Cambridge, 1819, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Cambridge, 1819, Englisch)
	Account of the Earthquake which destroyed the Town of Caraccas on the 26th March 1812 (Edinburgh, 1819, Englisch)
	Account of the earthquake that destroyed the town of Caraccas on the twenty-sixth march, 1812 (Liverpool, 1819, Englisch)
	Sur les Gymnotes et autres poissons électriques (Paris, 1819, Französisch)
	An Account of the Earthquake in South America, on the 26th March, 1812 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1820, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hartford, Connecticut, 1820, Englisch)
	Account of the Elecrical Eels, and of the Method of catching them in South America by means of Wild Horses (Edinburgh, 1820, Englisch)
	Observations respecting the Gymnotes, and other Electric Fish (London, 1820, Englisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hallowell, Maine, 1820, Englisch)
	Earthquake in the Caraccas (London, 1820, Englisch)
	Sur les Gymnotes et autres poissons électriques (Paris, 1820, Französisch)
	[Earthquake at Caraccas] (Hartford, Connecticut, 1821, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas (London, 1822, Englisch)
	Earthquake at the Caraccas (Shrewsbury, 1823, Englisch)
	Electrical eel (Hartford, Connecticut, 1826, Englisch)
	Baron Humboldt’s observation on the gymnotus, or electrical eel (London, 1833, Englisch)
	The gymnotus, or electric eel (London, 1834, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas in 1812 (Hartford, Connecticut, 1835, Englisch)
	Earthquake at Caraccas (London, 1837, Englisch)
	Electrical eels (London, 1837, Englisch)
	Female presence of mind (London, 1837, Englisch)
	An earthquake in the Caraccas (London, 1837, Englisch)
	An Earthquake (Leipzig; Hamburg; Itzehoe, 1838, Englisch)
	Das Erdbeben von Caraccas (Leipzig, 1843, Deutsch)
	The Gymnotus, or Electrical Eel (Buffalo, New York, 1849, Englisch)
	Anecdote of a Crocodile (Boston, Massachusetts; New York City, New York, 1853, Englisch)
	Battle with electric eels (Goldsboro, North Carolina, 1853, Englisch)
	Anecdotes of crocodiles (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1853, Englisch)
	Das Erdbeben von Caracas (Leipzig, 1858, Deutsch)

|42| |Spaltenumbruch|

An Account of the Earthquake in SouthAmerica, on the 26th March, 1812. by the baron de humboldt.

A great drought prevailed at this period inthe province of Venezuela. Not a single dropof rain had fallen at Caraccas, or in the countryninety leagues round, during the five monthswhich preceded the destruction of the capital.The 26th of March was a remarkably hot day.The air was calm and the sky unclouded. Itwas Holy Thursday, and a great part of the po-pulation was assembled in the churches. Nothingseemed to presage the calamities of the day. Atseven minutes after four in the afternoon thefirst shock was felt; it was sufficiently power-ful to make the bells of the churches toll; itlasted five or six seconds, during which time theground was in a continual undulating movement,and seemed to heave up like a boiling liquid.The danger was thought to be past, when a tre-mendous subterraneous noise was heard, re-sembling the rolling of thunder, but louder, and|Spaltenumbruch|of longer continuance, than that heard withinthe tropics in time of storms. This noise pre-ceded a perpendicular motion of three or fourseconds, followed by an undulatory movementsomewhat longer. The shocks were in oppo-site directions, from north to south, and fromeast to west. Nothing could resist the move-ment from beneath upwards, and undulationscrossing each other. The town of Caraccas wasentirely overthrown. Thousands of the inha-bitants (between nine and ten thousand) wereburied under the ruins of the houses andchurches. The procession had not yet set out;but the crowd was so great in the churches,that nearly three or four thousand persons werecrushed by the fall of their vaulted roofs. Theexplosion was stronger toward the north, inthat part of the town situate nearest the moun-tain of Avila, and the Silla. The churches ofla Trinidad and Alta Gracia, which were morethan one hundred and fifty feet high, and thenaves of which were supported by pillars oftwelve or fifteen feet diameter, left a mass ofruins scarcely exceeding five or six feet in ele-vation. The sinking of the ruins has been soconsiderable, that there now scarcely remainany vestiges of pillars or columns. The bar-racks, called El Quartel de San Carlos, situatefarther north of the church of the Trinity, onthe road from the Custom-house de la Pastora,almost entirely disappeared. A regiment oftroops of the line, that was assembled underarms, ready to join the procession, was, withthe exception of a few men, buried under theruins of this great edifice. Nine-tenths of thefine town of Caraccas was entirely destroyed.The walls of the houses that were not throwndown, as those of the street San Juan, near theCapuchin Hospital, were cracked in such amanner, that it was impossible to run the riskof inhabiting them. The effects of the earth-quake were somewhat less violent in the westernand southern parts of the city, between theprincipal square and the ravin of Caraguata.There, the cathedral, supported by enormousbuttresses, remains standing. Estimating at nine or ten thousand the num-ber of the dead in the city of Caraccas, we donot include those unhappy persons, who, danger-ously wounded, perished several months after,for want of food and proper care. The nightof Holy Thursday presented the most distress-ing scene of desolation and sorrow. That thickcloud of dust, which, rising above the ruins,darkened the sky like a fog, had settled on theground. No shock was felt, and never was anight more calm, or more serene. The moon,nearly full, illumined the rounded domes of theSilla, and the aspect of the sky formed a per-fect contrast to that of the earth, covered withthe dead, and heaped with ruins. Motherswere seen bearing in their arms their children,whom they hoped to recal to life. Desolatefamilies wandered through the city seeking abrother, a husband, a friend, of whose fate theywere ignorant, and whom they believed to belost in the crowd. The people pressed alongthe streets, which could no more be recognisedbut by long lines of ruins. All the calamities experienced in the greatcatastrophes of Lisbon, Messina, Lima, and Rio-,bamba were renewed on the fatal day of the |43| |Spaltenumbruch|26th March, 1812. The wounded, buried underthe ruins, implored by their cries the help ofthe passers by, and nearly two thousand weredug out. Never was pity displayed in a moreaffecting manner; never had it been seen moreingeniously active, than in the efforts employedto save the miserable victims, whose groansreached the ear. Implements for digging andclearing away the ruins, were entirely wanting;and the people were obliged to use their barehands, to disinter the living. The wounded, aswell as the sick who had escaped from the hos-pitals, were laid on the banks of the small riverGuayra. They found no shelter but the foliageof trees. Beds, linen to dress the wounds, in-struments of surgery, medicines, and objects ofthe most urgent necessity, were buried underthe ruins. Every thing, even food, was wantingduring the first days. Water became alikescarce in the interior of the city. The commo-tion had rent the pipes of the fountains; thefalling in of the earth had choked up thesprings that supplied them; and it became ne-cessary, in order to have water, to go down tothe river Guayra, which was considerably swell-ed; and then vessels to convey the water werewanting. There remained a duty to be fulfilled towardthe dead, enjoined at once by piety, and thedread of infection. It being impossible to interso many thousand corpses, half buried underthe ruins, commissaries were appointed to burnthe bodies: and for this purpose funeral pileswere erected between the heaps of ruins. Thisceremony lasted several days. Amid so manypublic calamities, the people devoted them-selves to those religious duties which theythought were most fitted to appease the wrathof Heaven. Some, assembling in processions,sung funeral hymns; others, in a state of dis-traction, confessed themselves aloud in thestreets. In this town was now repeated whathad been remarked in the province of Quito,after the tremendous earthquake of 1797; anumber of marriages were contracted betweenpersons, who had neglected for many years tosanction their union by the sacerdotal benedic-tion. Children found parents, by whom theyhad never till then been acknowledged; restitu-tions were promised by persons who had neverbeen accused of fraud; and families, who hadlong been enemies, were drawn together by thetie of common calamity.

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