Church bells tolled across Lisbon on Tuesday as Portugal marked the 250th anniversary of one of the most destructive and deadly earthquakes in history which reduced most of its capital to rubble and sent shockwaves across Europe.
The bells rang for 15 minutes from 9.30am (8.30am GMT), around the time the quake is believed to have struck the city on the morning of November 1, 1755 while many people attended mass in observance of All Saints’ Day.
At the same time Lisbon’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Jose Policarpo began leading a mass in memory of all victims of natural disasters in the ruins of the Carmo convent, which were preserved to remind residents of Lisbon of the destruction.
The quake, combined with the resulting tsunami which struck the city about 90 minutes later and the fires it triggered which raged among the rubble for six days, killed up to 12 000 people in Lisbon, then one of Europe’s largest cities with about 250 000 residents.
Thousands more lives were lost to the giant waves which struck other parts of Portugal’s southern coast, southwestern Spain and North Africa.
Geologists today estimate that the earthquake reached a magnitude of 8,5 on the Richter scale, with an epicentre located about 350km southwest of Lisbon.
It was felt as far away as Finland, caused church bells to ring on their own in Paris and agitated the waters of lakes in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. – AFP
