7 Accounts of Damage from Historical Earthquakes in the Northeastern Caribbean, to Aid in the Determination of their Location and Intensity Magnitudes Open-File Report 2011–1133 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey This page has been left blank intentionally. Accounts of Damage from Historical Earthquakes in the Northeastern Caribbean, to Aid in the Determination of their Location and Intensity Magnitudes By Claudia H. Flores, Uri S. ten Brink, and William H. Bakun Open-File Report 2011–1133 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Department of the Interior KEN SALAZAR, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Marcia K. McNutt, Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia 2012 For product and ordering information: World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment: World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS Suggested citation: Flores, C.F., ten Brink, U.S., and Bakun, W.H., 2012, Accounts of damage from historical earthquakes in the Northeastern Caribbean to aid in the determination of their location and intensity magnitudes: U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report 2011–1133, 237 p. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted material contained within this report. Acknowledgements The preparation of this catalog benefited much from the guidance of Colleen Hurter of the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute data library archives. She pointed out the availability of many online databases and facilitated the various interlibrary requests made for information. Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Features of interest included in this catalog ......................................................................................................................... 8 Source Search Method ........................................................................................................................................................ 9 The Bulletins from the meteorological observatory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti ....................................................................... 12 Catalog of earthquakes with their descriptions ...................................................................................................................... 13 Earthquakes from 1500 to the end of the 17th Century ....................................................................................................... 15 Earthquakes of the 18th Century ........................................................................................................................................ 20 Earthquakes of the 19th Century ........................................................................................................................................ 53 Selected Earthquakes of the 20th Century .......................................................................................................................... 95 Other Significant Earthquakes of the Caribbean .............................................................................................................. 149 Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands ..................................................................................................................................... 149 Lesser Antilles .............................................................................................................................................................. 154 List of Events Studied by the Authors .................................................................................................................................. 171 Maps of the Northern Caribbean .......................................................................................................................................... 173 Historical events of interest on the island of Hispaniola ....................................................................................................... 175 Index of Earthquakes by Island and by Year ....................................................................................................................... 177 References Cited ................................................................................................................................................................. 180 Additional Material ............................................................................................................................................................... 191 Quoted text extracted from de Utrera (1995, p. 17–18) explaining that the true date of the “1564” earthquake is actually December 2, 1562, based on evidence from contemporary source ............................................................. 191 Geographic locations used in the catalog for the Northern Caribbean ......................................................................... 193 Figures 1. Tectonic Map of the Northern Caribbean showing the islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Northern Lesser Antilles .................................................................................................................................. 173 2. Map of the island of Hispaniola showing the locations of cities and towns with significant populations .................. 173 Tables 1. Events studied further in Bakun and others (in press) and ten Brink and others (2011) ......................................... 171 2. Earthquake Modified Mercalli Intensity Criteria ....................................................................................................... 172 3. List of Locations ...................................................................................................................................................... 193 6 Accounts of Damage from Historical Earthquakes in the Northeastern Caribbean, to Aid in the Determination of their Location and Intensity Magnitudes By Claudia H. Flores, Uri S. ten Brink, and William H. Bakun Abstract Earthquakes have been documented in the northeastern Caribbean since the arrival of Columbus to the Americas; written accounts of these felt earthquakes exist in various parts of the world. To better understand the earthquake cycle in the Caribbean, the records of earthquakes in earlier catalogs and historical documents from various archives, which are now available online, were critically examined. This report updates previous catalogs of earthquakes, in particular earthquakes in Hispaniola, to give to the public the most comprehensive documentation of earthquake damage and to further the understanding of the earthquake cycle in the northeastern Caribbean. Documentation of an event in the past depended on the population and political trends of the island, and the availability of historical documents is limited by the physical resource digitization schedule and by the copyright laws of each archive. Examples of documents accessed are governors’ letters, newspapers, and other circulars published within the Caribbean, North America, and Western Europe. Key words were used to search for publications that contain eyewitness accounts of various large earthquakes. Finally, this catalog provides descriptions of damage to buildings used in previous studies for the estimation of moment intensity (MI) and location of significantly damaging or felt earthquakes in Hispaniola and in the northeastern Caribbean, all of which have been described in other studies. Introduction The preparation of this catalog of reports of Caribbean earthquakes felt since 1492 was prompted by the January 12, 2010, MW 7.0 earthquake that caused significant devastation and more than 222,000 deaths in the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and its immediate surroundings. Parts of the extensive destruction can be attributed to the lack of earthquake awareness and preparedness (Eberhard and others, 2010). If the past is the key to the future, then the accounts of earthquake effects in the Caribbean over the past 5 centuries provide critical information for understanding the seismic hazard and the appropriate preparedness measures for Haiti and other countries throughout the Caribbean. This report constitutes a catalog of accounts of historical earthquakes since 1492 and modified Mercalli intensity assignments for significantly damaging or felt events that can be used to better characterize historical earthquakes, especially on the island of Hispaniola where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located. The goal for this catalog is to present as much information as possible on damages from past earthquakes for the purpose of determining earthquake intensities and to improve on past catalogs, 7 especially for those earthquakes before the 20th century. In the past, comprehensive compilation of damage reports depended on physically accessing documents in libraries