Earthquake at Guadaloupe - 8 February 1843 - reduced the town of Pointe-a-Pitre to ashes. Struck terror into the populations of Guadaloupe and Martinique. The latter suffered very little but Guadaloupe very soon presented a spectacle of ruin and desolation. Pointe-a-Pitre was overturned in an instant, and the fire which followed completed the work of destruction. Huge crevices appeared in the earth, from which torrents of water, smoke and flame were cast uo, and in these great numbers of people were engulphed. The number of persons who perished was upwards of 2000, and the value of the property destroyed was etimated at seventy millions of francs. All the official docuents, archives, correspondence, etc., were lost. All the neighbouring towns suffered more or less injury. 固opFoto