Olot earthquake (15th century)
The Pyrenees area is considered a seismically active zone. Quakes have been reported repeatedly around the Pyrenees ridge throughout history. The Spanish historian Jeronimo Zurita mentions a great earthquake on February 2, 1373 in the county of Ribagorça with severe devastation and many dead. At the end of the first third of the 15th century - more precisely from 1427 to 1429 - the seismic events culminated in a series of earthquakes in the area of Olot .
Earthquake in Northern Catalonia
At the end of the first third of the 15th century, a series of earthquakes hit the Olot area. The main quake of the first phase occurred on March 15, 1427. This quake reached magnitude VIII on the Mercalli scale . The second phase culminated on May 15th of the same year. This quake devastated the city of Olot and surrounding villages. It also had a strength of VIII. After this quake, King Alfonso V of Aragon (or Alfonso IV of Barcelona) placed the devastated city of Olot, all people and objects, under his personal protection and ordered its reconstruction under the same name and names Rights, namely trade fair and market rights. A third phase culminated in the earthquake on February 2, 1428. This earthquake reached an intensity IX to X after Mercalli in the area of Olot, Camprodon and Puigcerdà and killed 800 to 1000 people. The latter quake was felt all over Catalonia and adjacent parts of southern France. In Barcelona, for example, the rose window of the Santa Maria del Mar church was destroyed. This third quake is considered "terratrèmol de la Candelera", as the Catalan vernacular due to its dated February 2, Candlemas referred -Beben.
These quakes of March and May 1427 as well as of February 1428 are often summarized under the term "earthquake of Olot". A quake with great intensity on February 2, 1429 in the area of Puigcerdà has a somewhat expanded connection with this seismic event. These quakes in Olot are evident today, among other things, at the numerous destroyed Romanesque churches and chapels in the Garrotxa and the area around Olot. Most of the time, the vaulted ceilings of these buildings collapsed. The churches were then often no longer rebuilt true to the original. The originally Romanesque church of Sant Martí del Clot in La Vall de Bianya is a representative example .
literature
- Enciclopèdia Catalana (Ed.): Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana. 1st edition. Volume 14, Barcelona 1980, ISBN 84-85194-10-1 (for volume 14), p. 365 f., Article "terratrèmol" (earthquake), there on page 366 a brief mention and classification of the earthquakes of Olot from the 15th century. (in Catalan)
- Joaquim Danés i Torras : Llibre d'Olot. 2nd, expanded edition. Verlag Editorial Selecta, Barcelona 1960, p. 153, there a brief description of the effects of the earthquakes of May 15, 1427 and February 2, 1428 for the city of Olot.