Catalogue of Violent and Destructive Earthquakes in the Philippines

Catalogue of Violent and
Destructive Earthquakes in the
Philippines

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Earthquakes in the Philippines, by Miguel Saderra Masó This eBook is
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Title: Catalogue of Violent and Destructive Earthquakes in the
Philippines With an Appendix: Earthquakes in the Marianas Islands
1599-1909
Author: Miguel Saderra Masó
Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18556]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CATALOGUE OF VIOLENT AND ***

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Note: | | | | Most of the information in this document is presented in | |
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR WEATHER BUREAU
MANILA CENTRAL OBSERVATORY
CATALOGUE OF VIOLENT AND DESTRUCTIVE
EARTHQUAKES IN THE PHILIPPINES
WITH AN APPENDIX
EARTHQUAKES IN THE MARIANAS ISLANDS
1599-1909
BY REV. MIGUEL SADERRA MASÓ, S. J.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE WEATHER BUREAU
MANILA BUREAU OF PRINTING 1910

CATALOGUE OF VIOLENT AND DESTRUCTIVE
EARTHQUAKES IN THE PHILIPPINES (1599-1909).

Introduction.--The occasion for publishing this catalogue of Philippine
earthquakes which were of violent and destructive character has been
furnished by a request from Prof. John Milne for a list of such
phenomena, to be included in the General Earthquake Catalogue which
this eminent seismologist is preparing under the auspices of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science. The said general
catalogue has been undertaken with a view toward reducing to
uniformity and completing those published years ago by Robert Mallet
(1859) and Perrey (1844-1871). The form adopted for Professor Milne's
new catalogue is very concise, comprising only the date, intensity, and
region together with principal localities affected. It will contain only
the earthquakes of intensities VII to X according to the scale of De
Rossi-Forel, and these will be divided into three classes: Class I will be
formed by the earthquakes of sufficient force to produce cracks in
buildings and to throw down chimneys; they correspond to force VII of
De Rossi-Forel. Class II consists of the earthquakes which not only
threw down chimneys but also walls and some weak structures; force
VIII of De Rossi-Forel. Class III comprises the earthquakes which
caused general destruction; force IX and X of De Rossi-Forel. As this
classification is as purely conventional as every other and adopted only
in the catalogue mentioned, we do not employ it in the present
catalogue of Philippine earthquakes, but retain the almost universally
adopted scale of De Rossi-Forel. We shall also present more details as
to the towns and buildings damaged, the number of victims and other
disastrous effects than enter into the catalogue of Professor Milne.
Hence, the differences between the list prepared for Professor Milne as
well as the partial catalogue published in our Monthly Bulletin for
February of the present year consist in the following: (1) This catalogue
contains also several earthquakes whose intensities were between VI
and VII, while in the former only such figure as according to their
effects were decidedly of force VII. (2) The new catalogue is more
complete as to details concerning the towns, etc., which have been
destroyed.
It is to be regretted that we are unable to present here a complete
historical catalogue of all the destruction wrought in the Archipelago

by earthquakes since the time when Legaspi and Urdaneta first set foot
on these shores. But the old chroniclers, who dwell upon the political
happenings with an attention to detail which is occasionally overdone,
were invariably laconic when there was question of earthquakes and
similar natural phenomena; as a rule they were satisfied with
mentioning the occurrence in a general and therefore vague way,
without any attempt at precision as to dates and places. Still the writers
in the Philippines did nothing worse than imitate their colleagues
throughout the rest of the world. This fact is responsible for the great
contrast exhibited by our catalogue as regards the number and details of
earthquakes which occurred prior to 1800, records of which have been
preserved, and the same data for the period from 1800 to the present
time. This same difference is observable in all catalogues