Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-01-06
A MEMORABLE EARTHQUAKE.
The BIOttinG Ont of the City of Carae
els-rhe Destruction Accomplished
in a iDgle Minute.

I
Ascension Day, 1872, rose fair
and bright in the city of Caracas.
The air was calm, the sky un-
clouded it is an error to suppose
that earthquakes are usually ac-
companied, or preceded, by any
threatening appearance of the ele-
ments. Large numbers of the in
habitants were at church, in attend
ance on the services of the day.
Suddenly the bells tolled without
touch of mortal hands; this was the
first intimation of the earthquake,
which, almost simultaneously, was
upon the unhappy people. The
movement of the earth--as in the
late widespread catastrophe-was
from north to south, with transverse
| jerks from east to west Those
cross agitations of the surface, oc-
curing with extreme rapidity, in
stantly Frustrated everything ami
mate and inanimate. The inhab-
itants were unable to crawl to the
church doors, and those vast
churches, which are characteristic
of all South American cities from
! the largest to the smallest, descend
ed in ruins around them. Ten
Thousand persons arc said to have
been killed in the churches alone
The churches of La Trinidad at Alta
Gracia, more than $50 feet in
height, with naves supported by pill
lars of twelve and fifteen feet in Iii
ameter, were reduced to a mass of
ruins little more than a mans height
In the barracks of a regiment of
soldiers which had just been drawn
up under arms, ready to form part
of a procession that was to take
place after divine services, scarcely
a man of them was left. And all
this was the work of single minute
From the first tOlling of bell TO
the falling of the last stone Of the
city of Caracas, one minute elapsed.
Many thousand persons were MAIN
ed and wounded, for whom there
was no shelter, no medicine, no food,
scarcely a drop of water There
were not even implements where
with to extricate them from the ruins
which lay upon them. The surviv-
ors dug out with their fingers 1000
of their crushed fellow citizens, who
had still some life remaining in them.
The shock had broken the pipes con
veying water; the falling in of the
earth had choked up the springs
which supplied them; there were no
utensils in which to carry water from
| the river
The wounded and sick were car
ried to the rivers bank, and there
left under such protection as the
foliage afforded. The night, we are
told, rose calm and serene; the
round full moon shone over the sad
labors of the survivors. Mothers
still carried their dead children
about, refusing to believe that life
had entirely fed. Troops of rela-
tives and friends sought for missing
ones, up and down streets now be
traced only by long lines Of ruins.
A sterner duty yet remained.
Twelve thousand dead bodies lay
around, and decomposition, within
the tropics, may be said to begin at
the moment of death. There were
no means of digging graves; the
bodies must be burned, and that at
once. Bands of citizens were set
apart for this duty. Vast piles of
timber from the ruins of their homes
were raised at frequent intervals ;
bodies of fathers, husbands, wives,
children, laid on them; and soon
the whole sky was lighted with these
awful flames. This lasted for sew
eral days, during which the surviv-
ors strictly devoted themselves to
religious exercises. Some sang
hymns; others confessed crimes OF
which they had never been suspect
ed; numbers made what eompensa
ton was in their power.
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