June 7th, 1692 – Port Royale, Jamaica
I wish we knew ahead of time what was going to happen; I wish we had something that would give us a warning for a disaster as great as this. Between the hours of eleven and twelve am, my house started to shake violently. I got my family up and outside to see what was going on when we heard shouts of “EARTHQUAKE!” We turned to face Port Royale in the distance, and what we saw was the city built upon sand vanish into the Ocean. Almost the entire city was gone in about two minutes, swept into waves of sand. The tops of the ships that were in the harbor seemed to be at the same height as the tall houses which had now collapsed into the sea. After seeing that, we ran away from Port Royale as fast as we could, trying to get away from the destruction that followed. We somehow survived the disaster, and moved with the survivors to create a new town at Liguanea. We have been digging graves for many that have perished, and more people keep dying each day due to the after-shocks; these have gone on for months now, but thank God the shocks appear to be not as dangerous as they were before. I don’t know how much longer we can keep digging, but we must try to press on.
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