January 26, 447 Earthquake: Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey

447. Egypt. Syria, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem,

Alexandria, destructive, intensity VIII-IX. (ref #1222)

447, November 8. Constantinople; also felt in Thrace, the Chersonesus, the Troad, Bithynia, Phyrgia, and the Hellespont. Violent shocks. (ref #521)

447, December 8. 40.7 N, 29.3 E. Intensity VIII. At Istanbul and Izmit Bay. (ref #1071)

447, January 26. 40.9 N, 28.5 E, magnitude 7.3, intensity VIII (Constantinople). According to Ammianus, this great earthquake struck various places and many walls of the city collapsed together with 57 towers. Huge blocks of stone and a number of statues collapsed. Starvation and a noxious smell in the air killed many thousands of people and cattle. Many cities were reduced to ruins. Evagrios records that many towers in different parts of the imperial city were knocked down and the long wall of the Chersonese (Callipole) was reduced to ruins. The earth opened and swallowed up many villages and innumerable other calamities happened both by land and sea. Fountains became dry and large areas of water formed on the surface, where none had existed before. Entire trees were torn up by the roots and hurled into the air and mountains were suddenly formed by the accumulation of masses thrown up. The sea also cast up dead fish, many islands were submerged and ships were seen stranded by the retreat of the waters. At the same time Bithynia, the Hellespont and both Phrygias suffered severely. The calamity lasted for considerable time. Malalas writes that during the reign of Theodosios II

Nicomedia suffered its fifth calamity and was razed to the ground and flooded by the sea. Theodosios built many buildings here including the public baths, the colonnades, the harbour, the public arenas, the martyrium of St. Anthimus and all the city's churches. During his reign Constantinople suffered for the first time. The Chronicon Paschale adds that fire had been seen in the heavens too. Nicephoros Callistos, a very late source, adds that earthquakes lasted for 6 months. (ref #4408)

447, January 26. Constantinople, Nicomedea. There was a destructive earthquake on Sunday night, 26 January 447, which affected a large area that included parts of the provinces of Bithynia, of the two Phyrgiae and of the Hellespont, where it is said that many towns were ruined, about which, however nothing is known in detail. In Constantinople, public buildings and houses collapsed, particularly in the region between the Toad Emvola (Forum Theodosii) and the Bronze Tetrapylon... The shock caused general panic and the people left the city and camped outside, the emperor praying with the people and the clergy remaining barefoot for many days. Many people and animals perished in the aftermath of the earthquake from famine and disease... The shock was possibly followed by a sea wave casting ships and fish onto the land, although this is not certain... With the army of Attila approaching, the walls of the city were rebuilt in a matter of two months, which suggests that the damage was not all that great, some of these repairs being recorded by extant inscriptions. The land walls were repaired all along their 5-km length from the Marmara coast to the coast of the Golden Horn in 60 days... Marcellinus Comes, although he gives the same AD 447, records a famine and plague after the earthquake, which killed thousands. Admittedly this is separate from the earthquake, and Marcellinus does not say that anyone was killed in the earthquake, although in view of the extent of the damage, it is hard to believe that there were no deaths... evidence points strongly to an earthquake on Sunday 26 January. The only year during Theodosius's reign in which the 26 January fell on a Sunday was AD4 447, which would indicate that this event was not a later event on 26 January AD 450... (ref #9116)