‘Extract of a Letter”

Date

4-29-1812

Newspaper

Norfolk Herald

Page and Column

Page 2, Column 4 and 5

Newspaper Location

Norfolk, Virginia

Serial Number

1013

Abstract

Report on the April 26, 1812 earthquake in the Caribbean, very detailed account

Transcript

PHILADELPHIA, April 22 Extract of a letter dated La Guira; April 4, 1842. "A very heavy earthquake which took place here on the 26th ult. has laid this town in total ruins; not a house standing except a few which are so shaken and shattered as to be uninhabitable. The city of Caraccas, 15 miles, distant, is in a still more deplorable condition. There a total fall of all the houses has been effected. In Laguira the Custom-house is still standing, but is cracked in many places. The killed in Caraccas are estimated at 9,000. In Laguira, at 1500. My own escape is miraculous, for I was amidst the destruction in Caraccas whither multitudes of people had gone in consequence of the great holidays, which began on the very day of the earthquake. The houses in the streets where I walked did not fall immediately.-I ran to the Market Square, which was close by; there were five of us in company, only three survived. As soon as the earth began to shake the Spaniards dropt on their knees, had they run like the strangers many more of them would have escaped. "The earthquake began at 7 minutes past 4 o'clock, P. M. The horror of the sight of the wounded and mangled, men, women and children is not to be described. I never saw any thing so heart-appalling. All the dead, as they are found, are carried and thrown in heaps and burned. The shock came from the West and continued from two minutes and a half to three minutes. Previous and immediately preceding the shock the ground opened in furrows, raised, bended and twisted up with the flexibility of a great heavy sea. The houses tumbling into ruins, the men, women and children shrieking and crying, the dust flying so thick as to cause total darkness, made a scene of horror which no pen nor pencil can describe; and all this dreadful scene was made still more horrible by a tremendous noise in the earth which threatened momently to swallow up all upon its surface. It is with difficulty the road is travelled between this and Caraccas; it is so cracked, broken and narrowed that a barrel could scarcely be passed along. It is evident the whole mountain has been agitated. "All the goods unsold I got on board the vessel again, but many of them in indifferent order and some stolen; the negroes persist in their old habits. Mr. Gerard Patrullo escaped by jumping out of a window, his brother Anthonio is killed. "People are in continual apprehension of another shock. Since the 26th, seven or eight small shocks have been felt, but they have done no further damage than to tumble into ruins the few shattered houses that remained. Provisions on hand for five months if well managed. Fears are entertained of a counter revolution, as all the interested and disaffected Clergy and Laity are busy ascribing the late calamity to the revolution against their old Monarch. At his moment we have had another and more terrible shock than any since the 26th. When or how all this will end God only knows."

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