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Alexander von Humboldt: „Earthquake at Caraccas in 1812“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1819-Baron_Humboldts_Personal_Heft1-22-neu> [abgerufen am 19.04.2024].
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| Titel | Earthquake at Caraccas in 1812 | ||||||
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| Jahr | 1835 | ||||||
| Ort | Hartford, Connecticut | ||||||
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Nachweis in: The Connecticut Courant 4:11 (15. Juni 1835), Supplement, S. 87–88.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Schmuck: Kapitälchen. | ||||||
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|87||Spaltenumbruch|
At this period the province of Venezuelalaboured under great drought; not a dropof rain had fallen at Caraccas, or to thedistance of 311 miles around, during thefive months which preceded the destructionof the capital. The 26th March was ex-cessively hot: the air was calm and thesky cloudless. It was Holy Thursday, anda great part of the population was in thechurches. The calamities of the day werepreceded by no indications of danger. Atseven minutes after four in the evening the|Spaltenumbruch|first commotion was felt. It was so strongas to make the bells of the churches ring.It lasted from five to six seconds, and wasimmediately followed by another shock offrom ten to twelve seconds, during whichthe ground was in a continual state of un-dulation, and heaved like a fluid underebullition. The danger was thought to beover, when a prodigious subterranean noisewas heard, resembling the rolling of thun-der, but louder and more prolonged thanthat heard within the tropics during thun-der-storms. This noise preceded a perpen-dicular motion of about three or four sec-onds, followed by an undulatory motion ofsomewhat longer duration. The shockswere in opposite directions, from north tosouth and from east to west. It was im-possible that any thing could resist themotion from beneath upwards, and the un-dulations crossing each other. The city ofCaraccas was completely overthrown.—Thousands of the inhabitants (from nine toten thousand) were buried under the ruinsof the churches and houses. The proces-sion had not yet set out; but the crowd inthe churches was so great that nearly threeor four thousand individuals were crushedto death by the falling in of the vaultedroofs. The explosion was stronger on thenorth side of the town, in the part nearestthe mountain of Avila and the Silla. Thechurches of the Trinity and Alta Gracia,which were more than a hundred and fiftyfeet in height, and of which the nave wassupported by pillars from twelve to fifteenfeet in diameter, left a mass of ruins no-where higher than five or six feet. Thesinking of the ruins has been so great thatat present hardly any vestige remains ofthe pillars and columns. The barrackscalled El Quartel de San Carlos, situatedfarther to the north of the church of theTrinity, on the road to the custom-housede la Pastora, almost entirely disappeared.A regiment of troops of the line, which wasassembled in it under arms to join in theprocession, was, with the exception of afew individuals, buried under this largebuilding. Nine-tenths of the fine town ofCaraccas were entirely reduced to ruins.The houses which did not fall, as those ofthe street of San Juan, near the CapuchinHospital, were so cracked that no one couldventure to live in them. The effects of theearthquake were not quite so disastrous inthe southern and western parts of the town,between the great square and the ravine ofCaraguata;—there the cathedral, supportedby enormous buttresses, remains standing.
|88||Spaltenumbruch|
“In estimating the number of personskilled in the city of Caraccas at nine or tenthousand, we do not include those unhappyindividuals who were severely wounded,and perished several months after from wantof food and proper attention. The nightof Holy Thursday presented the most dis-tressing scenes of desolation and sorrow.The thick cloud of dust, which rose abovethe ruins and darkened the air like a mist,had fallen again to the ground; the shockshad ceased; never was there a finer orquieter night,—the moon, nearly at the full,illuminated the rounded summits of theSilla, and the serenity of the heavens con-trasted strongly with the state of the earth,which was strewn with ruins and deadbodies. Mothers were seen carrying intheir arms children whom they hoped torecall to life; desolate females ran throughthe city in quest of a brother, a husband,or a friend, of whose fate they were igno-rant, and whom they supposed to have beenseparated from them in the crowd. Thepeople pressed along the streets, which nowcould only be distinguished by heaps ofruins arranged in lines.
“All the calamities experienced in thegreat earthquakes of Lisbon, Messina, Limaand Riobamba were repeated on the fatalday of the 26th March, 1812. The wound-ed, buried under the ruins, implored the as-sistance of the passers-by with loud cries,and more than two thousand of them weredug out. Never was pity displayed in amore affecting manner; never, we may say,was it seen more ingeniously active than inthe efforts made to succour the unhappypersons whose groans reached the ear.—There was an entire want of instrumentsadapted for digging up the ground andclearing away the ruins, and the peoplewere obliged to use their hands for thepurpose of disinterring the living. Thosewho were wounded, as well as the patientswho had escaped from the hospitals, wereplaced on the bank of the little river ofGuayra, where they had no other shelterthan the foliage of the trees. Beds, linenfor dressing their wounds, surgical instru-ments, medicines, in short, every thing ne-cessary for their treatment, had been buriedin the ruins. During the first days nothingcould be procured,—not even food. Withinthe city water became equally scarce. Thecommotion had broken the pipes of thefountains, and the falling in of the earthhad obstructed the springs which suppliedthem. To obtain water it was necessaryto descend as far as the Rio Guayra, which|Spaltenumbruch|was considerably swelled, and there wereno vessels for drawing it.
“There remained to be performed to-wards the dead a duty imposed alike bypiety and the dread of infection. As it wasimpossible to inter so many thousands ofbodies half-buried in the ruins, commission-ers were appointed to burn them. Funeral-piles were erected among the heaps of rub-bish. This ceremony lasted several days.Amid so many public calamities, the peopleardently engaged in the religious exerciseswhich they thought best adapted to appeasethe anger of Heaven. Some walked inbodies chanting funeral-hymns, while oth-ers, in a state of distraction, confessedthemselves aloud in the streets. In thiscity was now repeated what had takenplace in the province of Quito after thedreadful earthquake of the 4th February,1797. Marriages were contracted betweenpersons who for many years had neglectedto sanction their union by the sacerdotalblessing. Children found parents in personswho had till then disavowed them; restitu-tion was promised by individuals who hadnever been accused of theft; and familieswho had long been at enmity drew together,from the feeling of a common evil. Butwhile in some this feeling seemed to softenthe heart and open it to compassion, it hada contrary effect on others, rendering themmore obdurate and inhuman. In great ca-lamities vulgar minds retain still less good-ness than strength; for misfortune actslike the pursuit of literature and the inves-tigation of nature, which exercise theirhappy influence only upon a few, givingmore warmth to the feelings, more eleva-tion to the mind, and more benevolence tothe character.”
From Humboldt’s Travels. EARTHQUAKE AT CARACCAS,IN 1812.