1692 Jamaica earthquake

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The 1692 Jamaica earthquake struck Port Royal, Jamaica, on 7 June. A stopped pocket watch found in the harbour during a 1959 excavation indicated that it occurred around 11:43 AM local time. Known as the "storehouse and treasury of the West Indies" and as the "wickedest city in the world", Port Royal was, at the time, a key city in colonial Jamaica and one of the busiest and wealthiest ports in the Americas, as well as a common home port for many of the privateers and pirates operating on the Caribbean Sea. The 1692 earthquake caused most of the city to sink below sea level. About 2,000 people died as a result of the earthquake and the following tsunami, and another 3,000 people died in the following days due to injuries and disease.

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