Ibn al‑ʿImād wrote that there were three hours of
heavy shaking
in Damascus,
destroying houses, displacing huge stones, breaking many
windows of the souks, and killing many people under the
debris
. He also reported that many terraces and a quarter
of the minaret of the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus
collapsed. A village in al-Ghūṭah, near Damascus, was said
to have been overturned with only one survivor. The same earthquake was reported to have been severe in
Antioch and Mosul, where more than 2,000 houses
collapsed and 20,000 people were said to have perished.
The date of the earthquake was given as
A.H. 233 (17 August 847 CE – 4 August 848 CE).