Message #157155

[Illyria]

In 1755, the earthquake struck on the morning of 1 November, the Catholic holiday of All Saints' Day. Contemporary reports state that the earthquake lasted between three-and-a-half and six minutes, causing gigantic fissures five-metres (15 ft) wide to appear in the city centre. Survivors rushed to the open space of the docks for safety and watched as the water receded, revealing a sea floor littered by lost cargo and old shipwrecks. Approximately forty minutes after the earthquake, an enormous tsunami engulfed the harbour and downtown, rushing up the Tagus river[3], "so fast that several people riding on horseback ... were forced to gallop as fast as possible to the upper grounds for fear of being carried away". It was followed by two more waves. In the areas unaffected by the tsunami, fire quickly broke out, and flames raged for five days.