April 16, 1690 Earthquake: Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda

The date of April 6 is from the Julian calendar. This would be April 16 on the Gregorian calendar, which wasn't adopted in the region until later. Earthquake encompassed a large mesoseismal area (Dorel, 1981, who estimates a magnitude Ms 8+). Oldmixon (1741) says, "The earth opened 9 feet in many places on St. Kitts, and buried solid timber, sugar mills..." The earthquake resulted in the earliest record of a tsunami affecting any present U.S. territory. Olsen (1988) quotes a letter from the governor of St. Thomas in 1690 that stated, "Last Sunday, which was April 6, this island has been hit by a terrible earthquake lasting one-half of a quarter-of-an-hour, so that people feared their houses would come down. Some hours after that the sea receded so much that one could walk about 9 to 10 fathoms into the sea and pick out fishes on dry land."

1690, April 5. 17.5 N, 61.5 W, magnitude 8.0 MS. (reference #1500)

1690 April 5. Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, Guadeloupe (IX). Antigua "buildings in rubbish and killed some people". St. Kitts "It threw down the Jesuit college and all other stone buildings".Guadeloupe "suffered severely" (reference #364)

1690 April 16. magnitude 7.5 Ms (reference #1681)

1690 April 16, magnitude 7.0 Mw, depth 15km. The oldest large earthquake reported in the West Indies occurred on April 1690. It caused serious damages in Antigua, St. Kitts, and Nevis. There are conflicting reports about this event. Robson [1964] mentioned that a large earthquake occurred on 5 April and was felt across the entire northern arc, except in Grenadine, with intensities of IX in Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Guadeloupe. Other earthquakes were reportedly felt on 10 April [Perrey, 1847] and 16 April [Feuillard, 1985]. Feuillard [1985] proposed that the earthquake felt in Guadeloupe occurred on the 16th, instead of the 5th or 10th, and that maximum intensities were VIII, instead of IX, in Antigua, St. Kitts, and Nevis and only VI in Guadeloupe where a large, damaging event was not mentioned in local chronicles […] (reference #13355)

The 1690 earthquake was felt at high intensity in all three parts of St. Christopher but Robson (1964) interpreted a contemporary account that the earthquake was felt equally in "the French islands" (i.e., in the French part of St. Christopher) to mean that the earthquake was felt strongly in Guadeloupe. Feuillard (1984) has shown conclusively that the earthquake was not felt strongly in Guadeloupe so that, in this instance, magnitude estimates based on Robson's catalog are too high. (reference #14503)