Delaware Patriot & American Watchman

THE EARTHQUAKE IN BOGOTA.

From the Constitutional of Nov. 22.

On Friday last, at about a quarter past 6 P. M., this city was visited by a severe earthquake. The shock threw down the towers of the Cathedral, injured almost all the Churches, the palace and other public buildings, and has reduced to a heap of ruins many of the private dwellings. Scarcely a house has been left uninjured, and a considerable number are not habitable. We regret to say that these calamities have been aggravated by the loss of lives: the precise number of persons who have been killed we are unable to state, although we heard that on the day after, fifteen had been interred in the cemetery of this city. Several others have suffered injury, and not a few were dug the same evening, out of the ruins.

Although perhaps not so severe a shock as that which befell this city on the 11th of June of last year, it has been incomparably more destructive, from its duration, which was at least three quarters of a minute, and from the weakened state of the buildings in consequence of former earthquakes. This city, indeed, has suffered so severely that it will be long before it recovers what it has lost: and the alarm which this continuance of the convulsions of nature has excited, will not be easily surmounted. It is impossible to guess even the amount of property destroyed, although it must be immense; there are many who estimate it about six millions. Some idea may be formed of it when we state, that the proprietor of the house in which we are now writing, and which is one of the largest and best situated in the capital, would be glad to dispose of it for the building materials.