Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Horror Day (updated)

Just a quick update as there has been quite a lot happening. Most of you may know the biggest news from me already, we had 8 earthquakes in as many hours yesterday, two of which were huge. It was without doubt the most frightened I have been in my entire life (or a very close second to when I broke my back). It sounds odd but after the first two we actually packed some provisions and clothing in to the car in case of the eventuality of the house coming down (following the first, there was a real fear this may happen). The last one happend at about 5am this morning. As you can imagine, I did not get a lot of sleep, luckily I am off work for a few days so did not have an early start.
I just found this on the internet:

EARTHQUAKES
Western Greece rattled by earthquake
Two strong quakes, measuring 6.0 and 5.2 on the Richter scale, struck the undersea area off the coast of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea yesterday afternoon, causing widespread damage but no injuries. The quakes, which occurred at around 6.30 p.m. in close succession, caused sections of the Kokkinos Vrachos (Red Rock) on the island to crumble while cornices fell off old houses and windows were smashed.
I then loooked on the internet for what these numbers actually mean and we seem to fit into the borderline for two categories:
  • 5.4-6.0 - Slight damage to well-designed buildings. Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. (guess which Greece falls in to!)
  • 6.0-6.9 - Can be destructive in areas up to about 100 kilometers across where people live.
Scary stuff indeed...
The reason I had four days off work was that we had planned to go on a Motorbike tour of Northern Greece and see Meteora which is an incredible range of Monastaries high up on "columns" of mountains. On the way, my back failed me so we ended up returning home before we were even close. A huge disappointment. I do not think it was connected to my accident and was possibly a trapped nerve or similar.
Keep Safe.

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