The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-06-22
SOUTH AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE

We have received the South Anleri
can Times Of May 21st, published a
Callao, Peru, in which are given addi
tional details of the fearful visitation
of the night of the ninth OF this month.
| The earthquake was felt with more
or less severity along the coasts OF
Chill. Bolivia, and Peru a distance OF
two thousand miles, but the principal
damage was inflicted in Peruvian and
Bolivian territory. North of Callao
there was a disturbance of the sea, but
no serious damage. On the Chilian
coast, as far south as Coquimbo, there
were severe losses. but mostly small
when compared with the effects of the
disaster above the Chilian line.
As stated in reports previously pub
lished, the greatest disaster was at the
Peruvian town of Iquique, the most
populous part of the city having been
destroyed, and ruin and poverty
brought upon its people. The first
alarm occurred few minutes after
eight o'clock on the evening of May
9th, when slight rumbling noise, ac-
comLanied by a slow movement of the
earth, announced the approach of the
terrible earthquake, and the tremen-
dous oscillations from northwest to
southeast indicate the catastrophe that
followed. These movements continued
for the space OF more than three min
utes and were accompanied by roar
ing noise, clouds of dust raised by the
shaking of the earth, and cries of wo-
man and children. A general stam-
pede to the hills of the people with
cries 1.-The seal The seap followed.
The bells rang announcing the break
ing out of a fire in the south of the
town, and the firemen, in spite of the
swaying and trembling of the earth,
labored to eYtinguish the flames. The
prolonged oscillation disturbed the
equilibrium of the sea, which soon i'll
vaded higher ground, destroying and
carrying away the business portion OF
the city. The loss of property is com
puted ut two and half million dol
lars.
1t is worth notice that the Iquique
EstrelLG of May s, four days before
the disaster that destroyed the town,
called attention to the numerous eartt-
quakes that had shaken the place dur
ing the preceding week and said some
of them were so severe as to cause well
founded alarm that the terrible scenes
of 1868 might be re enacted. The dis
aster was even greater than that of
nine years ago. ...
At numerous other places great dam
age was done and at some places the
loss of life was considerable. At Pa
bellon de Plea thirty-three laborers
were buried by a landslide. All the
guano stations suffered severely, not
only the works, but the supplies OF
food and water being washed away and
a number of vessels sunk. The actual
loss of life will perhaps never be
known, though there is no doubt it
may be estimated by hundreds, whilst
the loss of property, equally difficult
to estimate, may be counted by mil
lions.
A peculiar feature of the movement
OF the sea recorded by the South PG-
cifc Times has not been mentioned in
any of the accounts received by tele-
graph. This movement was very SIM
liar in all the ports along the coast
from Callao to Coquimbo (ChilD, al
though of varying intensity, being
more marked and severe near Pabellon
de Plea, which may be called the Gen.
ire of the disturbance. The sea showed
unusual agitation in Callao as early as
IL o'clock on the night of the 9th inst. :,
and shortly after the bay was filled
with gyratory currents, which caused
the various ships at anchor to revolve
about their chains as centers. The ac-
ton Of these currents was strong
enough to carry away the stern moor
irgs of the p. s. n. Co.'S Straits steam
er Liguria, and this immense vessel
kept swinging around through an en-
tire circle many times each hour. At
the Southern guano deposits the sea
produced similar effects upon the ship.
ping, but with disastrous results. The
vessels at anchor were kept swinging
round through the night of the 9th,
and those which laid in close to the
rocks, and which were partly or wholly
loaded, were twisted, SO to speak, from
their anchorage. their increased weight
and depth in the water, by reason OF
the guano loaded in them, giving the
currents more play upon them, 50 nat
there was no possibility of bringing
them up after they had once CON-
menced to drag. The launches and
broken masts which got adrift during
the collisions of the various vessels kept
returning alongside of the ships by the
circular motion of the water, and re-
peatedly SCARED their sides at, and a
few feet below, the water-line. Sew
eral vessels had their anchor chains en-.
tangled. At one moment they would
be in collision, then set free by the
currents, only to collide again when
the circular force brought them back
to the point Of first collision.
The South Pacific Times thinks that
had the motion of the sea been pro-
gressive the whole feet must have been
cast upon the sho e, or, in the regress
of the waves, have been carried out to
sea. To call the movement a tidal
wave, therefore, seems a misnomer, as
wave implies undulatory motion,
while the action of the sea was series
of distinct rotary upheavals, breaking
into many cyclonic currents of great
speed ard power, and continuing for
many hours.
The fact that the city of Tarapaca,
an interior town about seventy miles
from the port of Iquique, has been en-
tirely destroyed by the earthquake
which preceded the tidal wave leads to
the supposition that the disturbance of
the earth was primarily subterranean
and not submarine. LIS center is sup
posed to have been the volcano Ilaga
on the south boundry of Peru and Bo