IMC No. 3 P-PT – 23rd April 1909 Traditional Geocache

This cache has been archived.

SerafimSaudade: Esta cache foi arquivada por falta de uma resposta atempada e/ou adequada perante as situações relatadas. Relembro a secção das guidelines sobre a manutenção http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=307#maint :

[quote]
You are responsible for occasional visits to your cache to maintain proper working order, especially when someone reports a problem with the cache (missing, damaged, wet, etc.). You may temporarily disable your cache to let others know not to search for it until you have a chance to fix the problem. This feature is to allow you a reasonable amount of time – normally a few weeks – in which to check on your cache. If a cache is not being maintained, or has been temporarily disabled for an unreasonable length of time, we may archive the listing.

Because of the effort required to maintain a geocache, we ask that you place physical caches in your usual caching area and not while on a vacation or business trip. It is best when you live within a manageable distance from the cache placements to allow for return visits. Geocaches placed during travel may not be published unless you are able to demonstrate an acceptable maintenance plan, which must allow for a quick response to reported problems. An acceptable maintenance plan might include the username of a local geocacher who will handle maintenance issues in your absence.[/quote]

Como owner, se tiver planos para recolocar a cache, por favor, contacte-me por [url=http://www.geocaching.com/email/?u=btreviewer]e-mail[/url].

Lembro que a eventual reactivação desta cache passará pelo mesmo processo de análise como se fosse uma nova cache, com todas as implicações que as guidelines actuais indicam.

Se no local existe algum container, por favor recolha-o a fim de evitar que se torne lixo (geolitter).

Obrigado

[b] SerafimSaudade [/b]
Geocaching.com Volunteer Cache Reviewer

[url=http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=77][i][b]Work with the reviewer, not against him.[/b][/i][/url]

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Hidden : 4/23/2006
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


17:05

23rd April 1909

Benavente, Ribatejo - Portugal

“I just had dinner and, as I usually did, I went to bed to read the newspapers. Just after 5 o’clock, I felt a violent shake, so big I thought the house was cracking down. I was sent tumbling down to the middle of the room and I jumped up back on my feet. Then another shake. This time stronger. And it was then I realised it was an earthquake. I saw the walls cracking from roof to floor. The windows glass shattering in pieces. I heard a huge noise, hollow, deep, a subterraneous roar that one can’t describe. I grabbed my jacket and hat in a hurry, jumped down the stairs and reached the street. At that precise moment my house fell down like playing cards. In front of me, more houses fell down. Huge clouds of dust rised up in the air. I felt suffocating. I wanted to run and I couldn’t. My legs refused the slightest move. The screaming from my neighbourhood was howling. I couldn’t feel my heart, my blood had frozen in the veins and my brain paralised.

I saw myself doomed.”
A civil servant description (abridged)

On the 23rd April 1909, a very strong earthquake (calculated between 6 and 6.7 in the Richter scale) razed part of Ribatejo region. Benavente, Samora Correia, Santo Estevão and Salvaterra de Magos are destroyed. In Benavente, there is not a single house standing after the earthquake…

The above description still continues, telling us of tragedy and disaster.

“But this just last for a moment. Straining to put myself together, I gathered all my strengths, as one who tries to save himself from certain death. And I ran like a madman without any destiny, fulfilled of a fear I can’t describe. I was positively mad. I wanted to help, but I was only making it even worse for the poor ones who were in the wrecks. The falling down was continuous. The hellish sound of buildings rambling down, the cries of pain of a whole town, the clouds of dust and debris, so dense they blackened the sky like if it was night, the desolated looks of a town in ruins, are things I can never forget.

(…)

Just after the earthquake the whole population ran to the fields without any destiny. (…) Many survivors, like madmen, tried to pull out of the rubble, at any cost, their soul mates that were stuck under the ruins. The cries and pleads for help of the injured and the desperate and harrowing screams of the ones who were looking for mother, father, sun, brother or sister, that all is stuck in my memory and still fulfils my heart of the deepest agony.”

As the telegraphic lines went down with the earthquake, the first news of the Benavente tragedy arrived at Santarem (region’s main town) through a farmer that drove his car up there telling the terrible news. The first external help arrives to Benavente only six hours after the tragedy. The sight is chaotic, without a single house standing and many religious and public buildings tumbled. The death toll will stand at 60 (between Benavente and Samora Correia), but the hunger will rage and the help will be short-handed – it was necessary to call up the army and to jailbreak the penitentiary to get extra help (yes… they had to take a prison by force to get the prisoners out and then they helped on the urgent tasks…).

The above description (including citation) is based in "Estudo Histórico e Descritivo de Benavente", by Rui de Azevedo.

The cache

The cache is located near the town centre, some metres away from the Town Hall (destroyed in the earthquake) and its trademark clock-tower (an addition in the rebuilding).

Still, a warning has to be made on this cache. It is a cache as any other, but is also the start for an international cooperation multicache (between 6 countries). In each of these countries, a primary cache (like this one) is hidden somewhere. When a geocacher finds it, he / she will also find a hint sheet, with hints to all the 6 secondary caches around the world. These secondary caches can only be found with the hints that are scattered all around the globe. That means that if you want to find the secondary cache in your country (in Portugal it is IMC No. 3 S-PT – The Sway of the Land) - , you have to trade the hints you discovered in this primary cache, with the hints other geocachers found on their countries secondary cache.

Theis IMC set (the 3rd one) is dedicated to the ‘Earth’ element. But I hope you don’t have your experience enhanced by feeling a shake while hunting for this one…

You will find links to all other IMC No3 caches in the below link: (visit link)

Just a quick ‘thank you’ note to the MAntunes, who started the IMC caches in Portugal (he was part of the initial IMC No 1 g group) and who helped to move the IMC No 3 forward by recruiting members all over the World.

The “Earthquake aftermath” pictures are part of the “Câmara Municipal de Benavente” archives.

If there isn’t any hint list in the cache, I would ask you to contact me, so I can send it to you.

Code: Select all
Geocaching in Portugal  

 
Consulte GeoWiki

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Lbh cebonoyl fgrccrq bire vg...

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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