What did the ants do exactly? And how would the population have known that what the ants were doing was a ‘code’ of an impending earthquake?
The ants may have come out of the ground to escape being smothered by collapsed tunnels. Before the great eruption of Mt. Pelee on the Island of Martinique in 1902, foot long biting centipedes and poisonous snakes descended on the cities and towns near the volcano causing a number of deaths.
I guess the ants were surging out of the ground in large numbers. Who really knows what happened? I sure wasn’t there.
reading the comments closer it appears that a number of people keep ants and moths in water tanks (contadors). When these critters started get excited, the residents were forewarned. At least that’s what a number of them said. Sounds crazy to me.