As you will have seen from Anne's post on Monday, it was me who chose the theme for this week's discussion: natural disasters. There actually was a pretty good reason I came up with that idea, though at first it might seem pretty random.
The reason being that in this last week we have had over 40 smaller earthquakes, as well as 5 pretty big ones. Well, not "pee your pants" big, but ones that you could definitely feel and which shakey shakied you.
As you also might remember from my first ever post on this blog, I live on an island called Crete, which just so happens to be on the edge of two tectonic plates: the European one and the African one. Essentially, what that means is that we get earthquakes all the time (though we don't necessarily feel them all). It's not even really much of a problem with the ones we do feel. They shake around for a little while and then, they stop. Granted, sometimes they shake around for just a little longer than they should, or they shake in an up-down motion, which is much scarier than the left-right one for some reason, but they're still manageable. You just stick yourself under a table or a desk for a few seconds and you're all right.
Just so that you don't get the wrong sort-of feel, earthquakes here DO NOT resemble all those very scary, very, very, very powerful earthquakes that happen in Japan. No. Fortunately no.
There is a tad of a problem though. We have a volcano in Greece and it's on a small island pretty close to Crete. If you've ever heard of the Minoan civilisation, you might also be aware of the fact that the Minoan civilisation was destroyed when the volcano on the island of Santorini erupted and brought an tsunami-like wave splashing onto the north coast of Crete. Now, let's get back to modern day Greece. After all those earthquakes, we started hearing things on the television and the radio about the volcano "awakening" from its relatively dormant state and possibly leading to the formation of large waves (that would of course just head straight to Crete). Fortunately, no such thing has happened and I do hope it won't happen. It sounds too scary...
So there you have it. That's what you get when you live in one of the most seismogenic areas in the world (excluding Japan, of course). No fancy tornadoes (though I do think I once saw something that looked like a mini-tornado in the sea - not sure what to call it) and definitely no blizzards, but we do get more than our fair share of earthquakes.
I always find it weird though, how my Mum even manages to cope at the level she does (which is not much, to tell the truth). She grew up in England (where earthquakes happen maybe once every decade or even more) and she decided to move right on the verge of two tectonic plates, with earthquakes once every 4 months (when things are normal). Weird.
PS: Do you realise it's actually the 1st of February??? Time seems to be flying by....!
The reason being that in this last week we have had over 40 smaller earthquakes, as well as 5 pretty big ones. Well, not "pee your pants" big, but ones that you could definitely feel and which shakey shakied you.
As you also might remember from my first ever post on this blog, I live on an island called Crete, which just so happens to be on the edge of two tectonic plates: the European one and the African one. Essentially, what that means is that we get earthquakes all the time (though we don't necessarily feel them all). It's not even really much of a problem with the ones we do feel. They shake around for a little while and then, they stop. Granted, sometimes they shake around for just a little longer than they should, or they shake in an up-down motion, which is much scarier than the left-right one for some reason, but they're still manageable. You just stick yourself under a table or a desk for a few seconds and you're all right.
Just so that you don't get the wrong sort-of feel, earthquakes here DO NOT resemble all those very scary, very, very, very powerful earthquakes that happen in Japan. No. Fortunately no.
There is a tad of a problem though. We have a volcano in Greece and it's on a small island pretty close to Crete. If you've ever heard of the Minoan civilisation, you might also be aware of the fact that the Minoan civilisation was destroyed when the volcano on the island of Santorini erupted and brought an tsunami-like wave splashing onto the north coast of Crete. Now, let's get back to modern day Greece. After all those earthquakes, we started hearing things on the television and the radio about the volcano "awakening" from its relatively dormant state and possibly leading to the formation of large waves (that would of course just head straight to Crete). Fortunately, no such thing has happened and I do hope it won't happen. It sounds too scary...
So there you have it. That's what you get when you live in one of the most seismogenic areas in the world (excluding Japan, of course). No fancy tornadoes (though I do think I once saw something that looked like a mini-tornado in the sea - not sure what to call it) and definitely no blizzards, but we do get more than our fair share of earthquakes.
I always find it weird though, how my Mum even manages to cope at the level she does (which is not much, to tell the truth). She grew up in England (where earthquakes happen maybe once every decade or even more) and she decided to move right on the verge of two tectonic plates, with earthquakes once every 4 months (when things are normal). Weird.
PS: Do you realise it's actually the 1st of February??? Time seems to be flying by....!
Yes, the time really is flying :)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that anywhere in Europe was prone to earthquakes. Don't you dare get hurt if that volcano sets off another tsunami! I mean it!