1626 Potosí flood
The 1626 Potosí flood was a major disaster in Charcas (present-day Bolivia) that led to estimates of 2,000[1] or 4,000 human deaths.[2] On March 15, 1626, the San Ildefonso Dam burst causing a flood in the city of Potosí that destroyed many silver ore-processing plants (ingenios) and led to massive economical losses and environmental damages. Some interpreted the catastrophe as a divine punishment for past episodes of violence such as the 1622–1625 War of the Vicuñas and Basques.[3][4] There are reports that more than half of the ingenios were destroyed.[5] As silver ore in Potosí was extracted in a process that required mercury by one estimate 19.3 tons of the element, at concentrations of 48 mg/l Hg, were washed away by the flood.[1][6] Reconstruction after the flood went fast and ten years later, by 1636, there were more ingenios than before the flood.[7] The flood is in hindsight seen by some historians as the beginning of a century-long period of decline of Potosí.[7]
See also
[edit]- 1965 Valparaíso earthquake and the El Cobre dam failures
- Floods in Bolivia
- Mercury poisoning
- Pallaqueo
References
[edit]- ^ a b Gioda, Alain; Serrano, Carlos; Forenza, Ana (2002). "Les ruptures de barrages dans le monde: un nouveau bilan de Potosi (1626, Bolivie)" [Dam collapses in the world: a new estimation of the Potosi disaster (1626, Bolivia)]. La Houille Blanche (in French). 88 (4/5): 165–170. doi:10.1051/lhb/2002078.
- ^ Serrano Bravo 2004, p. 39.
- ^ Dominguez, Nicanor J (2006), "Rebels of Laicacota: Spaniards, Indians, and Andean Mestizos in Southern Peru During the Mid-Colonial Crisis of 1650–1680", Dissertation Abstracts International (Thesis (PhD)) (67–11): 137, ISBN 9780542988301.
- ^ González Moscoso, René (1989), Historia de las ideas políticas en el mundo y en Bolivia (in Spanish), Sucre, Bolivia: Editorial "Tupac Katari", pp. 119–20.
- ^ Serrano Bravo 2004, p. 89.
- ^ Serrano Bravo 2004, p. 90.
- ^ a b Serrano Bravo 2004, p. 40.
- Bibliography
- Serrano Bravo, Carlos (2004). Historia de la minería andina boliviana (siglos XVI–XX) (PDF) (in Spanish). Potosí, Bolivia.
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