The Effects of an Earthquake on Human Beings

Abstract

CAPTAIN DUTTON'S valuable memoir on the Charleston earthquake of 1886 contains many accounts of the effects of this great earthquake on human beings. Nowhere could they be more vivid than in Charleston itself. “On every side,” says one witness, “were hurrying forms of men and women, bareheaded, partially dressed, some almost nude [the earthquake occurred at 9.51 p.m.], and all nearly crazed with fear and excitement. … A few steps away, under the gas-lamp, a woman lies prone and motionless on the pavement, with upturned face and outstretched limbs, and the crowd which has now gathered in the street passes her by, none pausing to see whether she is alive or dead …; many voices are speaking at once, but few heed what is said.” Between this, which must surely be almost the limit of wild fear in a crowd, and the merely interested curiosity of the most distant observers, there seems to be nearly every stage of mental effect recorded. Such terms as “greatest consternation,” “fright and excitement unparalleled,” and “terror amounting to wild frenzy,” are, of course, too dependent on the narrator and too vague to be of any value as degrees in a scale of mental effects; but the resulting actions are less liable to error or exaggeration, and these may be roughly classified as follows, the different degrees being lettered to avoid confusion with the numbers of the soseismal lines: