The Destruction of Lisbon

With unprecedented strength and destruction, The Great Earthquake shook the capitals of Europe at 9:40 a.m. on All Saints' Day, 1755. Tidal waves 50 feet high swept over Algeciras, Spain. Churches filled to overflowing; smoky tapers and incense burned on altars. Some 22 aftershocks followed on that same November day. caving roofs and toppling hospitals -- with more than 1,000 patients -- prisons, public buildings, royal palaces, aristocratic town houses, cottages, churches, and houses of prostitution. Overturned candles helped to ignite the ensuing fire that consumed the once-proud capital of Lisbon, Portugal, in just 6 days, leaving it gutted, charred and shambled. Voltaire described this scene in Candide: "The sea boiled up in the harbor and smashed the vessels lying at anchor. Whirlwinds of flame and ashes covered the streets and squares, houses collapsed, roofs were thrown onto foundations and the foundations crumbled." When the dust cleared, 30,000 inhabitants were crushed beneath the tumbling debris. Survivors of the shocks ran from their burning homes toward the mighty Tagus, only to be met with walls of water 40 feet high. As many as 60,000 drowned or died in the 6-day holocaust.

The Resurection of Lisbon

Almost immediately after the ashes settled, the marquis de Pombal, prime minister of Portugal, ordered that the dead be buried and the city of Lisbon be rebuilt at once. Portugal's king gave Pombal virtually dictatorial powers. What Pombal ordered was a city of wide, symmetrical boulevards leading into handsome squares dominated by fountains and statuary. Bordering these wide avenues would be black-and-white mosaic sidewalks, the most celebrated in Europe. The resulting mixture of old and "new" is so harmonious that international travelers today consider Lisbon one of the most beautiful cities on earth.

Back