On the day of the great earthquake on Halloween in 1755, many people were attending All Saints' Day Mass in churches. Of the city's forty churches, thirty-five collapsed, causing devastating casualties.
The churches had been packed with people, and many of them were several centuries old and already on the verge of collapse. Around 15,000 people were buried beneath the fallen churches.
The Marquis of Pombal was in charge of disaster relief, but the first thing he did upon arriving at the scene was not to save people. Instead, he ordered the police to arrest anyone looting and stealing from the ruins, or shoot them on the spot. The army erected gallows at many high points throughout the city, hanging some thieves where the public could see them from afar.
The disaster movie Georgiana had watched, The Day After Tomorrow, had not shown anything like this. People reacted to disasters in all sorts of ways. Catholicism had plenty of lavish religious jewelry, such as ruby-studded crosses. Even though the churches still risked collapsing, and countless people were wailing for help, those tempted by wealth saw nothing but gold and gemstones.
The earthquake triggered fires, but they were quickly extinguished by the tsunami. Panicked people rushed to flee the city, and the roads outside were jammed with crowds.
Besides mobilizing the regular army, the Marquis of Pombal also summoned the militia, but they were stuck on the roads. So he forcibly ordered everyone trying to flee to return to the city. The regular army was responsible for clearing corpses, while the militia maintained order in the capital.
As long as people saw the corpses swaying from those "flagpoles," most obeyed the rules and did not touch the money buried beneath collapsed buildings. But even though Portugal lay relatively far south, people