1475 Earthquake: Mexico City

Reference #13078:

1475. Large earthquake that caused great damage and landslides in southern Mexico, inland of the Guerrero gap.

Torquemada (1969) and the sixteenth-century native historian Domingo Francisco Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (1965), who wrote in the original Nahuatl language, describe that the earthquake destroyed many houses and buildings and that many mountains suffered landslides. All damage reports are apparently from Mexico City, considering that many of the historical accounts refer to the Aztec capital. The reports suggest high-frequency seismic waves that caused damage in local structures and caused landslides. Thus, it may be speculated that the earthquake in 1475 may be a crustal event in or close to Mexico City, similar to the 1912 Acambay earthquake (Mw 6.9).

The earthquake reported in 1475 describes that many houses and buildings were severely damaged. The earthquake caused severe ground deformation that collapsed the islands used for agricultural work in what is today Mexico City and produced landslides in the mountains. Although the evidence is sparse, it suggests a high-frequency content of the seismic waves that possibly originated from a crustal earthquake like other seismic events reported on the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt in the past 450 yr (Suárez et al, 2020).