I never heard of the 1886 Charleston earthquake before today. And it’s amazing, because it was an incredibly powerful earthquake.

I live in the Bay Area, which is home to a very famous earthquake. The 1906 earthquake was a magnitude of 7.9 that occurred on April 18, 1906, at 5:12 am. People who were there described the noise “like the roar of 10,000 lions.”

The earthquake was immediately followed by a massive fire, which burnt through the city for four days.

Watching the fires set off by the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, photo by Arnold Genthe.

At the time, 700 people were thought to have died in the disaster. Today the death toll is estimated to be over 3,000 souls. But the earthquake was over in 45-60 seconds.  In a lot of subtle ways, the 1906 earthquake haunts the city and surrounding areas.

I’ve lived in the Carolinas too and visited Charleston many times and I’ve never heard of this disaster.

1886 Charleston

The 1886 earthquake was a magnitude of 7.3 that occurred which occurred August 31, 1886 at approximately 9:50 p.m. It was one of the most powerful ever to strike the East Coast. It wasn’t quite as catastrophic as the San Francisco quake but it was within spitting distance.

Carl McKinley was present and afterward wrote about the earthquake in his book The Charleston earthquake of August 31, 1886, saying, “The long roll deepened and spread into an awful roar, that seemed to pervade at once the troubled earth and the still air above and around. The tremor was now a rude, rapid quiver, that agitated the whole lofty, strong-walled building as though it were being shaken–shaken by the hand of an immeasurable power, with intent to tear its joints asunder and scatter its stones and bricks abroad, as a tree casts its over-ripened fruit before the breath of the gale.”

Like the 1906 earthquake, Charleston’s earthquake was over in less than one minute but the death toll is estimated to be 60 people.  Earthquake activity in the Charleston area into the 2000s was thought to be continuation of aftershocks from the 1886 quake.  How was such a gigantic occurrence wiped from our collective history?

All this made me curious about earthquakes. If a magnitude of 7 is catastrophic, what would a higher magnitude look like? Since 1501, the world has had 45 earthquakes at a magnitude of 8.5 or higher. The U.S. has had two earthquakes that were over a 9 in magnitude, both in Alaska. One was in 1585 and the other was in 1964.

Alaska 1964

Alaska’s Good Friday Earthquake occurred at 5:45 p.m. on March 27, 1964. It lasted 4 minutes and 38 seconds and was followed by a tsunami. The total death toll was 139 people. It’s the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

Alaska 1964

I was curious how people described the sound of this earthquake and learned some audio exists.

This earthquake is way outside of our time frame but if you’re interested, here’s a video that contains some sound and a lot of footage. We have photographs of the aftermath of the San Francisco and Charleston earthquakes but this video probably gives us a better idea of what it’s like to live through something like this.