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Updated: May 28, 2025
The terrible earth-wave overthrew the larger number of the private houses in the city, burying their inhabitants under the crumbling walls. Those who were in the streets more generally escaped, though some there, too, were killed by falling walls. The sudden overthrow of so many buildings raised vast volumes of fine dust, which filled the atmosphere and obscured the sun, producing a dense gloom.
In vain the door was jammed, and we were compelled to wait like rats in a trap until the shock had passed! Concentrating its energies into one final, convulsive effort, the huge earth-wave passed and left the earth palpitating and heaving like a tired animal. There came crashing down into our garden-plot the chimneys from the house in front of ours.
Twelve hundred were buried in the ruins of the general hospital, eight hundred in those of the civil prison, and several thousands in those of the convents. The loss of property amounted to many millions sterling. Although the earth-wave traversed the whole city, the shock was felt more severely in some quarters than in others.
The ruin, though general, was not universal. A considerable number of houses were left standing fortunately tenantless for a third great earth-wave traversed the city, and most of the buildings which had withstood the previous shocks, already severely shaken, were entirely overthrown. The last disaster filled the surviving citizens with the impulse of flight.
In general, light, wooden buildings are less injured by earthquakes than more solid structures of stone or brick, and it is commonly supposed that the power put forth by the earth-wave is too great to be resisted by any amount of weight or solidity of mass that man can pile up upon the surface.
The movement of the earth-wave was in general north and south, deflected to east and west, and the snake-like fashion in which rails on the railroad were bent indicated both a vertical and a lateral force. This earthquake has been attributed to various causes, but geological experts think that it was due to a slip in the crust along the Appalachian Mountain chain.
Wherever there was water, the shock seemed to have been neutralised, for I imagine that the water acted as a cushion to deaden the earth-wave. Neither the electric lighting nor the telephones were working.
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