16927 June 1692 · Port Royal, Kingston Harbour

Destruction of Port Royal

White barrack buildings and an old cannon behind the brick walls of Fort Charles, Port Royal — Photo: De Geo. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Taken by England with Jamaica in 1655, Port Royal grew into its richest Caribbean town, a base for buccaneers such as Henry Morgan and a busy market for sugar and enslaved Africans. On 7 June 1692 an earthquake turned the sandspit beneath it to liquid and about two-thirds of the town slid into the harbour; some 2,000 people died at once. Divers have since mapped the drowned streets.