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Fig. 2
Epicentre locations of the 18 September 1692 earthquake as defined in the different studies
of the earthquake
A more important compilation is the well-known catalogue of Sieberg (1940) on
the historical earthquakes in Germany and neighbouring areas (Fig. 3). It contains
new data and clearly some of them come from original sources, but without specific
references. Sieberg's map of the earthquake of September 1692 (Fig. 3) shows an
isoseismic curve of “strong damages” (“
kraftige Gebaude-Schaden
”) which sur-
rounds the area between Brussels and Antwerp, and a curve of “light destruc-
tions” (“
leichte Zerstorungen
”) from Oudenaarden in Flanders to Spa, Stavelot and
Aachen.
Finally, the paper of Van Gils and Zaczek (1978), which is a summary on the
seismicity of Belgium, localizes the epicentral area near the town of Tienen (Fig. 2),
with a M.S.K. maximum intensity level of VII; these authors put the earthquake
of September 18, 1692, in a table of the seismic events of the “area of Flanders
and Brabant”. It does not become clear on what this hypothesis of an epicentre in
Tienen. The two authors do not explain their choice, however it can be assumed that
they made their comment in analogy to other earthquakes supposedly located in the
same area, for example the earthquake of 23 February 1828 in eastern Brabant, and
also the shock of 13 January 1714 (supposedly near Tienen, but in reality in eastern
Belgium). Thus, a real myth of a particular seismic area around the town of Tienen
was created (Alexandre and Kupper, 1997).
The first one who called the Brabant epicentre into question is the Alsatian sci-
entist Jean Vogt (1984). He was also the first one who undertook a new research
towards original sources in the European archives. At last it was possible to get out
of the process of compiling previous catalogues. According to the analysis of so for
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