Nigel Cawthorne - 100 Catastrophic Disasters

100 CATASTROPHIC

DISASTERS

NIGEL CAWTHORNE

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Images courtesy of Imperial War Museum, ITN Archive, United States Naval Historical Foundation, Hulton Getty. For more information contact .

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ISBN: 978-1-84858-873-8

Imperial Chinese records provide information on the number of casualties in the 1556 earthquake

The earthquake centred on Hausien in the Shensi (or Shaanxi) province of China on the night of 23 January 1556 is thought to be the worse natural disaster in recorded history in terms of lives lost. Estimated to be of a magnitude of 8.0 to 8.3 on the Richter scale, it devastated ninety-eight counties and eight provinces of Central China.

The destruction spanned an area of five hundred square miles, and in some counties the average death toll was sixty per cent of the population. A total of 830,000 people lost their lives according to imperial records. This was because many lived in poorly constructed houses whose roofs collapsed or artificial caves dug in cliffs in the plateau of the loess, or soft clay, formed over millions of years by silt blown there from the Gobi Desert 200 miles to the north-west.

The earthquake also struck at night when most people were indoors, ensuring a higher death toll. Survivors of the initial quakes also found themselves victims of subsequent fires, landslides and floods caused, in part, by the quake. The tremor was so big that people felt it in over half of China.

Another earthquake of magnitude 8.6 on the Richter scale hit the Chinese province of Kansu to the north-west on 16 December 1920 killing some 180,000 people directly. A further 20,000 were thought to have died due to lack of shelter during the bitter winter that followed.

An even more catastrophic earthquake is thought to have occurred in the same area in the mid-1950s. Some estimates of the death toll put it even higher than the Ming dynastys 1556 record-holder. Up to a million people may have perished, but the Communist government which came to power in 1949 never confirmed the disaster or released any details of what happened.

China is particularly susceptible to earthquakes because it sits on the so-called ring of fire the band of volcanic activity that rings the Pacific and the northward movement of the Indian plate that collides with the Asian plate in the vicinity of the Himalayas. Seismology the study of earthquakes is thought to have originated in China.

In the sixth century, Antioch now Antakya in Turkey was a bustling trading centre with a long history. Founded by the Greeks in 300 BC, it had become the capital of the Seleucid Kingdom, then the provincial capital of Syria under the Roman Empire. When the imperial capital was moved eastwards from Rome to Constantinople, Antiochs importance as a commercial city grew. It had paved streets lit by oil lights, theatres, amphitheatres and public baths, all ringed by a massive stone wall.

Antioch was also one of the cradles of Christianity, the secure base for Pauls mission to the Gentiles. And the Emperor Constantine had built the Great Church with its golden-dome there.

On 29 May 526, the city was busier than usual. Thousands of Christians had flocked there for the feast of Ascension, the following day. Soon after 6 pm, when people had gone indoors at dusk, the earthquake struck without warning. Whole buildings collapsed in an instant, crushing those inside. An eerie silence followed. Then came the aftershocks, followed by a swift-moving fire. The flames blocked any route of escape. Survivors were burnt to death as they fled. Those trapped under the rubble were consumed where they lay or suffocated.

One of the few survivors, John Malalas, said that the fire fell down from heaven like rain Sparks of fire filled the air and burned like lightning. Except for the soil, the fire surrounded everything in the city, as if it had received a commandment from God that every living thing should be burned.

According to Malalas: Not a single dwelling, nor house of any sort, no church, nor monastery, nor any other holy place was left intact. Miraculously, after everything else had fallen by the wrath of God, the Great Church of Constantine remained standing for five days after the punishment. But suddenly even it caught on fire and collapsed to the ground.

It is estimated that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were killed in the initial shock and fire, or perished later among the rubble. Hordes of other thieves descended on the ruins, stripping the corpses of their clothes and jewellery, and tearing gold inlays and precious ornaments from the buildings. Survivors stumbling from the devastated city were attacked by bandits who stole their valuables and murdered anyone who resisted. One notorious thief was a man called Thomas who stationed his slaves at the city gates and amassed a fortune. But soon after he died and his plunder was dispersed. This was seen as an example of divine retribution.

Other miraculous tales circulated. Malalas said that pregnant women who had been trapped under the rubble for as long as three weeks came out unscathed, bringing their healthy babies with them. Other survivors said that they saw a cross hanging in the sky for more than an hour, three days after the earthquake. They fell on their knees and gave thanks. But no one could explain why God would want to destroy such a beautiful city.

The splendour of the city, its good climate and the beauty of its churches were such that those strangers who had seen it before and came there afterwards exclaimed: So utterly has this great refuge, this peace harbour of the world, been desolated, wrote Malalas. Antioch the Great collapsed by the wrath of God.

In fact, Antioch had been struck by an earthquake nine times. In AD 115 the Roman Emperor Trajan and the future Emperor Hadrian barely escaped with their lives, Trajan having to crawl through a window to get out of the collapsed building he was in. On that occasion it was said that the growing Christian minority in the city had offended the gods. The Bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, was taken in chains to Rome where he was tried, convicted and thrown to the wild animals in the Colosseum.

This time the earthquake was blamed on Justin I. A spate of quakes in the area had started soon after he came to the Byzantine throne in 518. When Justin heard of the destruction of Antioch, he took off his crown and the purple robe, mourned for a long time and wept, according to Malalas. Troops were sent to search for survivors. When Justinian succeeded Justin in 527, he sent money to have the city rebuild. But a new earthquake hit Antioch in November 528, killing another five thousand. Survivors began to move away out of the area, but Justinian was determined to have the city rebuilt once again, sent more money and gave all those who stayed behind a three-year tax break. He also decided to placate God by changing the name of the city from Antiochus to Theopolis, which means City of God. It did no good. In 540, the city was sacked by the Persians. Two years later the survivors were ravaged by the plague. The city was captured again by the Persians in 611 and shrank to a small town under the Arab caliphate, which took over the city in 637.