In 1690, an earthquake wrenched the earth, felled trees and set off waves high enough to flood villages along the Amazon River. As few witnesses were capable of recording the event, knowledge of this tremor is limited to the writings of Samuel Fritz and Fellipe Betendorf, two Jesuit priests on missions to evangelize Amazonian natives at the time. Geologist Alberto Veloso, a retired professor from the University of Brasília (UnB), has revisited the major earthquake in light of present-day seismological knowledge (Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, September 2014). He concluded that the existing descriptions are true to fact, consistent with the deformations of the Earth’s crust proposed recently for the region. Veloso estimates that the earthquake measured 7 on the Richter scale and took place off the left bank of the Amazon River, about 45 kilometers from what is now the city of Manaus. Based on Brazil’s seismic history, Veloso predicts that an event of the same magnitude will repeat itself every 500 years. He believes that modern seismology should be used now to look for evidence of this and other historical tremors, and to understand what might happen in the future. An earthquake like the one in 1690 could mean considerable destruction for today’s cities in the region.
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