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Alexander von Humboldt: „An Earthquake“, 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_Heft1-27-neu> [abgerufen am 18.04.2024].
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| Titel | An Earthquake | ||||
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| Jahr | 1838 | ||||
| Ort | Leipzig; Hamburg; Itzehoe | ||||
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Nachweis in: Gerhard van den Berg, Vollständige praktische englische Schul-Grammatik. Ein allgemein faßlicher Unterricht in der englischen Sprache, Leipzig/Hamburg/Itzehoe: Schuberth & Niemeyer 1838, S. [230]–233.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Sperrung. | ||||
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|230|
A great drought prevailed in the province of Venezuela.Not a single drop of rain had fallen at Caraccas, or in thecountry ninety leagues round, during the five months whichpreceded the destruction of the capital. The 26th of Marchwas a remarkably hot day. The air was calm and the skyunclouded. It was Holy Thursday, and a great part of thepopulation was assembled in the churches. Nothing seemedto presage the calamities of the day. At seven minutes afterfour in the afternoon the first shock was felt; it was suffi-ciently powerful to make the bells of the churches toll; it
|231|lasted five or six seconds, during which time the ground wasin a continual undulating movement, and seemed to heave uplike a boiling liquid. The danger was thought to be past,when a tremendous subterraneous noise was heard, resemblingthe rolling of thunder, but louder, and of longer continuance,than that heard within the tropics in time of storms. Thenoise preceded a perpendicular motion of three or four se-conds, followed by an undulatory movement somewhat longer.The shocks were in opposite directions, from north to south,and from east to west. Nothing could resist the movementfrom beneath upward, and the undulations crossing each other.The town of Caraccas was entirely overthrown. Thousandsof the inhabitants (between nine and ten thousand) were buriedunder the ruins of the houses and churches. The processionhad not yet set out; but the crowd was so great in thechurches, that nearly three or four thousand persons werecrushed by the fall of their fretted roofs. The explosion wasstronger toward the north, in that part of the town situatednearest the mountain of Avila, and the Silla. The churchesof La Trinidad, and Alta Gracia, which were more than onehundred and fifty feet high, and the naves of which were sup-ported by pillars of twelve or fifteen feet diameter, left a massof ruins scarcely exceeding five or six feet in elevation. Thesinking of the ruins has been so considerable, that there nowscarcely remain any vestiges of pillars or columns. The barracks,called El Quartel de San Carlos, situate farther north ofthe church of the Trinity, on the road from the customhouse de laPastora, almost entirely disappeared. A regiment of troopsof the line, that was assembled under arms, ready to jointhe procession, was, with the exception of a few men, buriedunder the ruins of this great edifice. Nine tenths of the finetown of Caraccas were entirely destroyed. The walls of thehouses that were not thrown down, as those of the streetSan Juan, near the Capuchin Hospital, were cracked in sucha manner that it was impossible to run the risk of inhabitingthem. The effects of the earthquake were somewhat less vio-lent in the western and southern parts of the city, betweenthe principal square and the ravin of Caraguata. There thecathedral, supported by enormous buttresses, remains standing.
Estimating at nine or ten thousand the number of thedead in the city of Caraccas, we do not include those un-happy persons, who, dangerously wounded, perished severalmonths after for want of food and proper care. The nightof Holy Thursday presented the most distressing scene of de-solation and sorrow. That thick cloud of dust, which, rising
|232|above the ruins, darkened the sky like a fog, had settled onthe ground. No shock was felt, and never was a night morecalm or more serene. The moon, nearly full, illumined therounded domes of the Silla, and the aspect of the sky formeda perfect contrast to that of the earth, covered with the deadand heaped with ruins. Mothers were seen bearing in their armstheir children, whom they hoped to recall to life. Desolate familieswandered through the city seeking a brother, a husband, afriend, of whose fate they were ignorant, and whom theybelieved to be lost in the crowd. The people pressed alongthe streets, which could no more be recognised but by longlines of ruins.
All the calamities experienced in the great catastrophesof Lisbon, Messina, Lima and Riobamba, were renewed onthe fatal day of the 26th of March 1812. The wounded,buried under the ruins, implored by their cries the help ofthe passers-by, and nearly two thousand were dug out. Neverwas pity displayed in a more affecting manner; never hadit been seen more ingeniously active, than in the efforts em-ployed to save the miserable victims, whose groans reachedthe ear. Implements for digging and clearing away the ruinswere entirely wanting; and the people were obliged to usetheir bare hands to disinter the living. The wounded, as wellas the sick who had escaped from the hospitals, were laidon the banks of the small river Guayra. They found noshelter but the foliage of trees. Beds, linen to dress thewounds, instruments of surgery, medicines, and objects ofthe most urgent necessity, were buried under the ruins. Everything, even food, was wanting during the first days. Waterbecame alike scarce in the interior of the city. The com-motion had rent the pipes of the fountains; the falling-in ofthe earth had choaked up the springs that supplied them;and it became necessary, in order to have water, to go downto the river Guayra, which was considerably swelled; andthen vessels to convey the water were wanting.
There remained a duty to be fulfilled toward the dead,enjoined at once by piety and the dread of infection. It beingimpossible to inter so many thousand corpses, half-buriedunder the ruins, commissaries were appointed to burn thebodies; and for this purpose funeral piles were erected be-tween the heaps of ruins. This ceremony lasted several days.Amid so many public calamities, the people devoted themselvesto those religious duties, which they thought were the mostfitted to appease the wrath of Heaven. Some, assembling inprocessions, sang funeral hymns; others, in a state of dis-
|233|traction, confessed themselves aloud in the streets. In thistown was now repeated what had been remarked in theprovince of Quito after the tremendous earthquake of 1797;— a number of marriages were contracted, between personswho had neglected for many years to sanction their unionby the sacerdotal benediction; children found parents, by whomthey had never till then been acknowledged; restitutions werepromised by persons who had never been accused of fraud;and families, who had long been enemies, were drawn to-gether by the tie of common calamity.
An Earthquake.