Today is the 350th anniversary of the devastating earthquake that happened in Dubrovnik back in 1667. 

The largest natural disaster in Dubrovnik history happened around 8 in the morning. Catastrophic earthquake started with rumbling sound and was followed by a tremendous kick that rocked the city and crashed it. Huge stones rolled down the hill of Srd and destroyed everything on its way.
Powerful tsunami devastated the port. Sea withdrew couple of times and then came back – waves carried the boats and crashed them on the coast. Cracks have appeared in the land and water sources have dried up. Dust was so thick that it obscured the sky.

Strong wind fueled the fire from homes and bakeries, turning it into the fire that was not extinguished for almost 20 days. Moaning, groaning and frantically running of those who survived marked that day and made it even more catastrophic.
The earthquake has destroyed almost the entire city and buried around 3000 people, while the fire destroyed cultural gods that have been built for several centuries. With fire, one more catastrophe came and made terrible damage to the city – robbers.

To make this even worse, the earthquake hit Dubrovnik in a critical political moment, in the time of long Candian war between Venice and Turkey. Warring parties now had a chance to gain an important advantage by taking over Dubrovnik and its port. They failed to do that thanks to the skilful and persistent Dubrovnik diplomatic actions.