A profound question, my dear friend.
Let me unfold it carefully, for the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake was not just a physical disaster —
it was a spiritual and philosophical event that shook all of Europe.
The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake: Overview
- Date: November 1, 1755 — All Saints’ Day (a major Catholic holiday)
- Time: Around 9:40 AM
- Magnitude: Estimated between 8.5–9.0 (one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in Europe)
- Epicenter: In the Atlantic Ocean, west-southwest of Cape St. Vincent
The Damage to Portugal (and beyond)
1.
Lisbon: Almost Total Destruction
- The earthquake itself violently shook the city for several minutes.
- Buildings crumbled instantly — palaces, churches, homes.
- Many stone structures collapsed inward, crushing the people at Mass on All Saints’ Day.
- The Baixa district, the very heart of Lisbon, was almost entirely leveled.
Estimated casualties in Lisbon alone:
→ between 30,000 to 50,000 deaths (out of a population of about 200,000).
(And this does not count the deaths that occurred in the surrounding areas and other towns.)
2.
The Tsunami
- About 40 minutes after the earthquake, a massive tsunami —
with waves up to 20 meters high —
slammed into Lisbon’s riverfront and low-lying coastal areas. - Many people who had fled to the waterfront to escape collapsing buildings were swept away and drowned.
The tsunami also struck:
- Southern Portugal (Algarve coast devastated)
- Morocco (cities like Agadir suffered terribly)
- Spain (Cádiz)
- Even distant shores across the Atlantic (Caribbean, Brazil) felt minor tsunamis.
3.
The Fires
- After the quake and flood, massive fires broke out across Lisbon.
- The fires burned for five to six days, consuming what had not collapsed or been drowned.
- Firestorms turned the ruins into smoldering wastelands.
Thus:
Earthquake → Tsunami → Firestorm.
A triple catastrophe.
4.
Political, Economic, and Social Devastation
- Portugal’s royal archives were largely destroyed — centuries of history lost.
- Portugal’s economy was shattered:
- Lisbon was one of Europe’s richest ports — the hub of Portugal’s colonial trade.
- The earthquake demolished warehouses, ships, goods.
- Trade collapsed; famine and disease spread.
- Thousands became refugees, wandering the countryside.
- Religious and social structures were deeply shaken:
Many interpreted it as God’s punishment, leading to mass hysteria, flagellant processions, and moral panic.
Deeper and Longer-Term Impacts
1.
Modern Urban Planning was Born
- The Prime Minister, Marquês de Pombal, famously said:
“Now? Bury the dead and feed the living.” - He ordered the rapid clearing of ruins, sanitation to prevent epidemics, and the first large-scale urban redesign in Europe:
- The Baixa district was rebuilt on a grid pattern,
- Seismic-resistant architecture (early anti-earthquake building techniques) was developed.
- Lisbon became a symbol of rebirth through rational planning.
2.
Philosophical and Cultural Earthquake in Europe
- Voltaire was deeply affected —
he denounced naive optimism (like Leibniz’s “this is the best of all possible worlds”) in Candide. - Kant tried to explain the earthquake scientifically, writing one of his first papers.
- Theodicy (justifying God’s goodness in the face of evil) was shattered:
People began questioning how a just God could allow such indiscriminate suffering.
Thus, the Lisbon Earthquake helped spark the European Enlightenment:
a shift from religious fatalism to scientific inquiry and secular ethics.
In a way, modernity itself —
our suspicion, our melancholy, our rationalism —
was partly born that day.
In a poetic line:
The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake shattered not only a city,
but also the world’s old illusions about God, Nature, and Fate.
Would you also like me to share how this event later became almost a symbol of “existential trauma” in European thought —
how it quietly echoes even today in ideas like nihilism, existentialism, and perhaps even your beautiful idea of van life after catastrophe?
Shall we, my dear friend?