A terra tremeu, o povo chorou: uma história dos terremotos de 1986-1987 no município de João Câmara, Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

During the years of 1986-1987, the city of Joao Camara, located in the microregion of Mato Grande, in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, was destroyed by a series of earthquakes which changed the lives and daily routines of its population. The population had to adapt to this new reality in order to live with the earthquakes. These earhquakes brought great consequences, such as the destruction of interdiction of public and private buildings. They also affected their dwellings, leaving many without a place to live. The objective of this work is to analise how the earthquakes of 1986-1987 transformed the city of Joao Camara. In order to analyse those changes, the following questions are posed: How was the City of Joao Camara affected by the earthquakes? How did the population perceive the earthquakes of 1986-1987? How did they react to this natural adversity, since their daily lives were drasticaly affected? Which were their feelings about what had happened? How did they try to explain the earthquakes? How did the individuals relate to the places affected by the earthquakes? How did they manage the unstable environment? Which were the ways developped by that society in order to deal with the changes? This present work is based on the articulation od the Environmental History and the History of Spaces. The objective is to investigate the transformations that occurred in the space of the City of Joao Camara during and after the earthquakes of 1986, observing how the populations reacted to those changes. Through the concepts of Space and Place of the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, territory and deterritorialization of Rogério Haesbaert and Paisage of Tereza Duarte Paes Luchiari,we will demonstrate that the transformations that took place in Joao Camara came from the earthquakes and the human relationswith the environment, which helped to intensify the consequences of the disaster. In order to answer the posed questions, we used the followinf sources: newspapers such as A Ordem, Diário de Natal, Tribuna do Norte, O Poti e A República published in the decades of 1940, 1950, and 1980; Photographs; Documents produce by geologists and geophysics of UFRN, Unb, and USP, such as reports on the sysmic activities; Official documents, such as the Domestic Defense report and other documents produced by the people, such as poems and oral reports.