The Great Quake

In 2521SD, the earth shook beneath the Sparkling Chain. It shook heavily as the plates beneath the archipelago grinded against each other. In over a hundred years, the area had not been hit by an earthquake as strong as this one.

The Earth Quakes

In the early morning of an otherwise normal first day of spring, the earthquake hit. The epicentre lay just offshore of the large island Lamcana on the eastern side of the island chain. Yet, also on the islands to the west, and even on the southern shores of Erumir Proper, the earthquake caused instant damage. The earthquake lasted fifteen seconds, and in those fifteen seconds, the future of the Sparkling Chain had been decided.
The earthquake itself caused the ground to rupture, huts and buildings to collapse, land to slide, and cliffs to crumble, the few unlucky settlements on top of those cliffs sliding down with the rock and being swallowed by the roiling ocean. As a result of the earthquake, a few minutes later, a giant tsunami washed away coastal towns and completely cleaned some of the smaller islands. And still, nature was not yet done doing damage.

Eruption of Mount Ogelom and Mount Narlès

Situated on a fault line, the Sparkling Chain knows many volcanoes. Most of them are dormant, but two handfuls are active. At the time of the earthquake, two of the active volcanoes were already close to eruption, and the shaking of the earth was enough to increase the pressure until the magma could no longer be contained.
First, two days after the earthquake, Mount Ogelom, located on Lamcana, erupted. Three days later, on a smaller island a little to the west, the side of Mount Narlès exploded. The nearby forests and settlements that had not even had time to recover from the earthquake and tsunami, were flooded by magma. On Lamcana, it rained ash for a week and a day.

Aftermath

Thousands of people lost their lives as a direct result of the earthquake, and almost the same amount of people lost their lives during its aftermath. Not only had huts and buildings been destroyed, but forests and arable land had been washed away, flooded, or been destroyed by the river of magma leaking from the volcanoes. Famine and displacement, however, was still not the end of it.
The tension between the Enthuri, who originated from Erumir Proper and had settled some of the islands, and the Inu Zim, the amphibious merfolk nomads of the Temiss Sea, reached new heights, resulting in another war between the two peoples. Known as the Great Displacement, the two peoples fought for hospitable land for three years, until the Treaty of Good Will was signed, and peace finally settled over the region.

Divine Interference

Both peoples inhabiting the Sparkling Chain believe the disaster was caused by the divine, however, both tell a different story. While the Enthuri believe the Mother and Father intervened to cleanse the islands of sea-dwellers and force them back to the sea, the Inu Zim believe the fire goddess, Fy’ra unleashed her anger on the land-walkers for harming the flora and fauna on the islands.