“Awful Calamity”

Date

5-1-1812

Newspaper

Raleigh Minerva

Page and Column

Page 3, Column 2 and 3

Newspaper Location

Raleigh, North Carolina

Serial Number

689

Abstract

Long report on Caribbean earthquake at La Guria

Transcript

AWFUL CALAMITY! "Ruins of Laguira, April 2, 1812. "DEAR SIR, "Many times in my life have I experienced the goodness of a merciful GOD towards me, but never so conspicuously as in my preservation during the tremendous exertion of His Power, which has shaken the mountains to their foundation, and leveled the greatest part of this city, as also that of Carraccas, with the ground-thousands and tens of thousands have been buried, and most of them now lie beneath the Ruins! The stench arising from the dead bodies, is intolerable-such of them as could be come at have been thrown into the sea, or collected into heaps and burned to ashes. It is imagined that seven eights of the houses in this city are demolished, and of those which still stand, there are not perhaps twenty that will be found tenable. The Custom House, which was built very strong, is not much injured-the house which I occupy is three stories high and was likewise very strong-it stood the shock without falling, but it was so much injured that I do not intend to sleep in, especially as we are constantly kept in a state of alarm by the frequent shocks which have daily taken place ever since the twenty sixth ultimo. When the first great shock occurred I ran out of my house and, in my amazement I turned round and behold it rocked like a cradle, which, with the roaring of the Earthquake, the screams of the people, and the crashing perhaps, of a thousand buildings, made the scene horrible beyond description!" The captain of a vessel arrived at Baltimore from Laguira, says, that he saw the hills so much agitated as to resemble the motion of vessels in a heavy sea. Extract of a letter from a gentleman in La Guayra to his correspondent in this city, dated La Guayra April 4th, 1812. "The dreadful earthquake which has laid in ruins the cities of Caraccas and Laguira, and the adjacent country, by which more than 5000 houses have been destroyed, happened on the 26th March, at 7 minutes past 4 o'clock, the explosion was so violent that it buried in its ruins more than 8 or 10,000 persons."--Sun. Extract of a letter received per sch'r Independence from La Guayra. "A few days prior to our arrival this town was was almost destroyed by an earthquake; it commenced about four o'clock P. M. on Thursday the 26th March; its duration was about 4 minutes and its effects horribly destructive; since my arrival, there have been a few shocks, but no material damage done. Such is the alarm of the inhabitants that the town is entirely deserted, and they are now living without the walls, beneath little tents and huts, which are erected merely to shelter them from the rain and heat of the sun. "It is not within the compass of my ability to describe to you the misery of these people; fear and despair, grief and ruin, have completely overwhelmed them. Parents have escaped, with the loss of their children; children with the loss of their parents, and very few without the loss of their property. Already five hundred persons have been found, and the probability is, that a greater number still remain buried beneath the ruins. The destruction at Caraccas is much greater; 2500 bodies have been thrown upon the funeral pile, and burnt already, and it is supposed, that from 5 to 10000 souls are lost.-Out of forty Churches in that place two convents only remain standing. Such is the lamentable situation of these two places, that it will be a long time, before they can be reinstated. No business of any nature is doing. All the Americans here will go to Puerto Cabello."--Ibid.

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