March 1675 Earthquake: Mindoro Island, Luzon Island, Philippines

Reference #414: 1675, March (February). There was an earthquake on Luzon and Mindoro Islands. A depression formed on Mindoro Island near the small city of Pola at the foot of one of the mountains. The sea penetrated along it onto the land and flooded a vast and very fertile plain, making it unsuitable for cultivation and habitation.

Reference #1072: 1675, February. A destructive, (intensity VIII) earthquake in northern Mindoro and Batangas Province. Mention is made of extensive landslides, the opening of many fissures and the subsidence of large tracts on the beach of the northeast coast of Mindoro. The repetitions were many and severe.

Reference #1055: 1675, February. Philippines, S. Luzon (Mindoro, Batangas). Intensity II which corresponds to buildings unroofed or shattered, some falling, and the ground may be badly cracked in places and small landslips occur.

Reference 1058: 1675, March, intensity VII. Eastern Mindoro.

Reference #1187: 1675, March. Luzon and Mindoro: Pola , Mindoro -opened a fissure at the edge of one of the mountains, the sea entered through this gap and flooded at extensive fertile plain. New church of the hospital destroyed. Atimonan, Tayabas - church ruined by the earthquake. Manila - also felt the earthquake which did some damage.

Reference 3029: 1675, March. Luzon and Mindoro. Santa Ines narrates: Last year, 1675, in March, there was an earthquake which opened a fissure at the edge of one of the mountains on Mindoro near the little town of Pola, which is not far from the capital. The sea entered through this gap and flooded an extensive and very fertile plain, rendering it unfit for planting and dwelling." Father Juan Francisco de San Antonio reproduces the foregoing citation almost verbatim.

A recent map of Mindoro, published by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1933 shows a marshy area near Pola between the rivers Pala and Pola. This may be the plain that was flooded in 1675.

Juan Maldonado de Puga, of the Order of Hospitalers of St. John, recorded that a new church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1674. Very probably the date should be 1675.

Legentil mentions this earthquake, translating the description given by Santa Ines.

Gironiere erroneously placed this earthquake in Mindanao, writing: "The earthquake of 1675 opened a high mountain in Mindanao. The water of the sea precipitated itself through this opening and inundated an immense area of cultivated land."

Perrey cited Gironiere and Legentil on this earthquake. After translating the account by Santa Ines, Legentil added a short dissertation on the volcanoes of the Philippines and mentioned the volcanoes of Mindoro and Manila. Perrey was badly misled by these two authors. He correctly places Pola in Mindoro, but says that he knows of no volcanoes in that island; he knows of three in Mindanao. He concluded that the earthquake was of very wide extent; implying that it was the result of a volcanic eruption in Mindanao.

The Boletin Oficial de Filipinas of October 13, 1852, classed this earthquake as one of the destructive earthquakes of the Philippines, and Perrey referred to this Bolelln.

Father Huerta relates that a wooden church was constructed in Atimonan, Tayabas, in 1638; that it was burned by the Dutch in 1640; that a stone church was built in 1643, and this was gutted by fire in 1648; and continues: "In 1650 it was rebuilt through the indefatigable zeal of Father Fuensalida, but it was ruined by earthquakes. Finally, in 1683, the present church was commenced." The earthquake of 1675 seems most likely, of those which we know, to have been the one that ruined this church, unless it was a cumulative damage from successive earthquakes.