12 - The Great Earthquake

The great earthquake of 1978 which startled and awoke Thessalonians from their summer indolence, and the impressions from that evening and the days of unrest that followed remained indelible in the memory of all those who lived through the event and its aftermath. A fear, which for many exceeded hitherto limits and caused panic, from the unprecedented in their lifetimes event and the not insignificant probability of dying under the rubble of aging and untested building structures, can be classified as a natural human reaction regardless of the reserves of innate fearlessness and bravery each individual possessed. The instinct of self-preservation and survival is patently stronger than the sexual instinct, because the latter presupposes life and existence. And that is a trivial truism.

It was late in the warm evening of June 20, 1978. The clock was about to strike 11pm. The formality of the easy, as much as unnecessary, exams for graduation from 3-years of mandatory education in the Greek Gymnasium and admittance to the second tier of the high school system, were over. There were no concerns whatsoever about grades and the result of those interim exams. Schools had already closed for summer and soon my family would head to the regular holiday destination of the last years: the camping of Skotina. It would be my last holidays in that place, before the marathon of the arduous preparation for the national university entry exams began. A last period of carefreeness and respite that summer would be then! The much-discussed at school World Cup, despite Greece’s national team elimination from the tournament, as always have been the case in the past, was taking place in distant Argentina and was in full swing. Father and I were sitting at either end of our old green, art-deco sofa, and watching a match from the previous day on the main channel of our national broadcast corporation. Although pre-recorded, it attracted the undiminished interest of the ardent football fan in me. There was nothing much better to do in that warm late evening, anyway.

The first jolt was startling and intense -one of those shocks that double the heartbeat within seconds· as much as terrifying as the shaking of our surroundings and the roar from the foundations of the building and the bowels of the earth below. It lasted several seconds, about ten seconds as it was reported, but during such a phenomenon anxiety and fear skew the linear perception of time in proportion to their intensity and the impact on our emotional state: time is generally expanded.

Father's first reflexive move was to turn off the television set, stand before the bookcase shelf it was placed and put his arms around it front of the library shelf to prevent it from crashing to the floor. I admired his equanimity and courage. Did he not experience fear? Did he consider the TV set such a valuable commodity worth protecting it ahead of himself and his family?  As far as I was concerned, my instantaneous reaction might have been naïve, but as instinctive: I sprang from the sofa and went to stand the header of the living-room door frame, with my arms extended and hands against the jambs. I had read somewhere in the popular literature about protective measures in the event of an earthquake that door-frames offer minimal cover. Crouching under a table could offer a better defence against falling debris or indeed the ceiling, but the nearest one was in the kitchen. The shelfing unit with books and bric-a-brac used to divide the reception hall area from our ‘drawing room’ was shaking behind me violently back and forth just in tandem with the floor under our feet, the walls, the earth. A couple of vases fell and smashed despite Mother's commendable attempts to hold on to them. And then, there was that universal eerie silence, as much terrifying as the quake.

The shock from the tremor was succeeded by the not baseless fear that at any instant our apartment building and the tons of concrete above our heads would collapse before we could manage a swift escape through the staircase. But, after the initial shock, traces of rational thinking emerged, albeit still guided by human instincts: of self-preservation and survival. A dark fear of similar magnitude I was seized by, when with heart-to-mouth, along with other block occupants, I cautiously descended the stairs from the top floors, was illuminated by glimmers of hope. In seconds we would be standing somewhere on solid ground, far from the menace of tall buildings around us, those plastered beasts of concrete that sprang out in the neighbourhood. As it happened, the nearest safe ground was the sand plot on the other side of the stream, where as children we used to play football. Other families from our and neighbouring streets had already assembled there. Most were acquainted with each other and talking in serious tones and pseudoscientific terms about the unprecedented natural phenomenon. A few neighbours headed to more distant open spaces and the few remaining vacant lands of the city. The more privileged or cautious ones headed to the parks by the city’s seafront.

Father brought the car from Deligiorgi Street where it was likely stationed perilously under someone’s balcony, and parked it under the crooked willow by stream so that I and Mother can sleep. Himself, he took Brother and returned back to the flat, fearless and brave, with the arrogant demeanour of a scientist, someone aware of the risks and consequences of such natural phenomena and one who had faith in the practices and conduct of Greece’s civil-engineers and contractors who designed and built those apartments blocks. Physics, Statics, Mechanics, Strength of Materials, etc… he knew better than the ordinary folk chattering about the earthquake and its impact on the concrete structures around us. His courage and bravery impressed me, again. On the other hand, his sleep, in nights and afternoons, would never have been negotiable and no event, even an earthquake of a magnitude never experienced in our lifetimes, would deter him from missing it. Mother and I tried to squeeze in the uncomfortable interior of the small FIAT to get some sleep on its seats. In the wee hours before dawn, with our cramped bodies tossed and turned uncomfortably in search for some vital sleep, we picked the one sheet we brought from upstairs as a cover, and ascended to the warmth and comfort of our beds. There had been no signs that ‘Enceladus’ would strike again. An aftershock in the morning woke me up in terror, but sleep was irresistibly sweet to relinquish the comfort of the bed. In the fascinating limbo of a half-asleep state, my mind was still alert in anticipation of another tremor.

Next day we heard in the news that an old apartment building by Hippodrome Square, close to the city centre, collapsed and many of its occupants tragically died, crumbled under the rubble of its eight-floors. Professor Papazachos, of the city’s university, became an instant celebrity, but he divided the public opinion of Thessalonians. A large percentage of them, who mainly comprised mainly the broader uneducated or semi-educated strata of the city, pointed a figure at him, at the ‘fool’ or ‘idiot’, who, despite the warnings of pre-earthquake activity, he appeared on the media reassuring people that an imminent major earthquake was highly unlikely. But did he say ‘probably’ or ‘unlikely’ or ‘with certainty’? I don't remember, and it doesn’t matter. How could a scientist be blamed, the child’s mind wondered, when any statement regarding the probability of such an event happening lacks practical significance? It would be even incomprehensible by the common folk, whilst a supposedly seismological authority even alluding to the possibility of a major earthquake would have serious consequences in the life of the city -psychological and political, and it might have caused unrest and even panic. The few faithful to science, like patients who expect a cure or, at least, a substantiated opinion from doctors, hung daily on the lips of Professor Papazachos and the other seismologists who were paraded in TV studios: as to what may or may not follow, as to what we should expect in the post-earthquake period.

An expert among them, with the assurance of an authority in the field stated that within the next thirty years an earthquake of the same or greater magnitude would occur in the Thessaloniki region. I was impressed by his weighty statement at that time, although on what grounds he could make such a remarkable statistical estimation not too many questioned. Life only for a few city inhabitants did change materially in the months and years that followed· for most it carried on as before. The seismologist’s ominous prediction was forgotten, and so did the traumatic night of the great earthquake. In the summer months of 1978, however, the city was deserted to an unprecedented degree by many of its inhabitants, who fled to the countryside and villages and towns of their ancestors and origin· the wealthiest to seaside resorts for a long summer holiday.

Seismology in the years that followed would raise its hands, as far as reliable predictions of earthquakes was concerned· it surrendered, to speak, to the randomness of the frequency and intensity of the potentially devastating natural phenomenon, and devoted itself to observe and collect and analyse the data from its observations. Somehow, in Greece, professors and experts were seemingly under some form of pressure to demonstrate the scientificity of their judgement and shine in front of an expectant public every time Nature trips us up -and, perhaps, in chasing national stardom. Temporary hopes from patents for supposedly reliable earthquake prediction, such as the much-heralded BAN, at the forefront of scientific news and national media for years in Greece, did not convince the broader scientific community and were quashed· the technique was abandoned as unworkable or inapplicable or unreliable. Thessaloniki, nearly half a century on, has been spared by another major earthquake that its likely occurrence was predicted within thirty years from the first one -in that unforgettable statement by one of the experts of the time.

I would spend the first year of Lyceum in the more modern building of the ‘Euclidean Technical College’, in three-shift crowded classes due to limited room space, but this made me and many others happy: the facilities were better and it was closer to home. The building of our old, historic High School, sustained structural damage and deemed unsuitable to house our classes until its reconstruction, which in Greece’s paces would take many years. Our apartment building, more than decade old when earthquake struck, withstood the impact apparently unscathed. The builder proved conscientious and Father was vindicated for the faith he inexplicably harboured for builders, in general. He was duly praised by family and the rest of the occupants of our block. A few days after the earthquake, a civil-engineer carried out an inspection and stuck a yellow sticker on our front door, signifying minor damage, capillary cracks in the plasters, nothing to worry about. The concrete structure survived the impact of the horrendous tremor.

Two years later after the earthquake we left our apartment on the second floor for a more modern block, built by a most trustworthy contractor and family friend. The old one, more than sixty years after its construction, and nearly fifty years after the great earthquake, still stands; a sorrow, ugly and fading block overlooking the small alley. Its gloomy sunless floors are still occupied by human souls, most of whom did not experience the great earthquake that shook the city. The fatal building of the Hippodrome Square, the only block of apartments in Thessaloniki that was raised to the ground not by a demolition bulldozer but by an earthquake, was replaced by another on the same plot of land, along with a monument to commemorate the perished occupants. The longevity of the tall concrete structures, architectural trademarks of Thessaloniki and major Greek cities, after relentless post-war construction, does not cease to amaze. The old city's skyline will never change.