Catalogue of Violent and Destructive Earthquakes in the Philippines | Page 2

of a similar
nature, even in those which cover phenomena which occurred in
Europe. As to the Philippine writers, an additional excuse is found in
the peculiar conditions of life in these Islands. As far as we know, only
two earthquakes which took place during the period which alone can
come under consideration--that is, since the discovery of the
Archipelago--have claimed a considerable number of victims, and these
in the capital, because outside of Manila--if we except two or three of
the principal cities--the buildings which could become dangerous
during an earthquake have always been few.
Moreover, in a country in which fires consume every year thousands of
dwellings and where the terrible typhoons frequently destroy whole
towns with heavy loss of lives, the damage done by earthquakes has
rarely been so great as to impress those occurrences indelibly upon the
memory. This is beyond doubt one of the reasons why prior to the
beginning of the nineteenth century hardly any data can be found
concerning the numerous earthquakes which during the preceding two
centuries must have occurred in the Visayas and above all on the large
Island of Mindanao.
The first earthquake of which the chronicles contain a mention is that
of 1599. There is no reasonable doubt that during the twenty-eight
years which had then elapsed since the founding of Manila by Legaspi,
several strong and possibly even destructive earthquakes occurred in

this part of Luzon Island, but, as the author of the "Verdadera relación
de la grande destrucción * * * del año 1645" tells us, "when first
founded, Manila consisted of wooden houses roofed with a certain kind
of palm leaves, the same which the natives use in their buildings."
Hence the damage done by these earthquakes must have been
insignificant. Much more terrible were the losses caused by
conflagrations which within a few years twice wiped out the entire city.
The first Bishop of Manila, Domingo de Salazar, seeing the city
exposed to such general destructions by fire like the one of February 14,
1583, gave the first impulse to the construction of stone buildings and
worked indefatigably in this direction. In person he explored the
surroundings of Manila in quest of stone quarries and by the middle of
the year 1591 he had nearly finished his palace and the cathedral, when
financial difficulties caused a temporary suspension of the work. At the
same time a great number of public and private buildings were under
construction. The enthusiasm for structures of stone or brick with tile
roofs did not diminish during the next fifty years. The chroniclers tell
us that "the Spaniards began to build their houses of stone and tiles
without the so necessary precautions against earthquakes. * * *
Beautiful structures and dwelling houses were reared, so high and
spacious that they resembled palaces; magnificent churches with lofty
and graceful towers, within the walls of Manila as well as outside of
them: all of which made the city very beautiful and gay and contributed
equally to health and pleasure." The disaster of 1645, commonly called
the earthquake of St. Andrew, as it occurred on the feast of this apostle,
November 30, razed nearly every one of these buildings to the ground,
and since then the style and appearance of buildings has changed
greatly throughout the Archipelago, with a correspondingly great
saving of lives in the subsequent earthquakes.
Masonry arches were henceforth banished from the churches; the heavy
walls of the latter were further strengthened by massive buttresses; and
the towers were given truly enormous substructures. But even with
these precautions there is at present hardly one out of the hundreds of
churches built during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which
did not some time or other require important repairs of its masonry

work or even partial reconstruction owing to earthquake damages. The
only structure of this class which thus far has withstood all convulsions,
is the church of St. Agustin, Manila. Nevertheless, as we have stated
before, the chroniclers hardly mention all this destruction, except in a
very general and cursory manner. I do not hesitate to say: they were
accustomed to see similar havoc created nearly every year in one part
of the Archipelago or the other by some severe typhoon, accompanied
by far greater loss of lives and property, and consequently much more
felt by the people than the destruction of a church, convento, municipal
building ("tribunal"), one or two bridges, or other masonry structure.
In the present catalogue our aim has been to present all that is known of
the various violent and destructive earthquakes on record. The first
column of each page contains the ordinal number of the disturbance for
purposes of reference. In the second, the date is given as accurately as it
could be ascertained, Roman numerals being used