His name has ever since been associated with that terrific sound which accompanies the onset of earthquakes. The time at which Encelatus took revenge on Athena, however, is precisely known; it was at 10:55 p.m. on February 24, 1981. Many maintain that so terrific was the sound that it shattered windows at the very instant before the earthquake was felt. Athens, of course, was not flattened out like a pancake but it got a good scare, and that Encelatus was still fuming a month later seemed clear from lava activity on Etna.
The 10:55 p.m. earthquake, which is firmly imbedded in the Athenian mind as exi comma exi because it registered 6.6 on the Richter scale, lasted from about eight to twelve seconds. At this historical moment, the beau monde of Athens was just rising from the dinner table; the corps diplomatique was present at the Hotel Meridien where a visiting Chinese delegation was being toasted by the President of Parliament Mr. Papaspyrou; a meeting of the business community had just broken up at which nuclear plants had been discussed and Attica had been described as safe because earthquakes never occurred there; the haute bourgeoisie was enriching its minds at the theater; some members of all classes were already in the arms of either Morpheus or Aphrodite; but the greater part of the good folk of Athens were settling down to their weekly, hour-long dose of Dallas. The epicenter of the earthquake was located fifty miles west of Athens under the uninhabited islands in the Gulf of Corinth so inappropriately called the Alkyonides, the Halcyon or Tranquil islands. (Health reports, by the way, said that the sale of tranquillizers doubled in Athens during the next few weeks.) It is interesting that the same flash of light which occurred in the Athenian sky at the time of the quake was observed by Aristotle who claimed it to be a familiar seismic phenomenon. This one, however, was explained as due either to an automatic cut-off system to be activated in an emergency situation or as a partial failure in a DEI generating plant. While much of the city was plunged only momentarily into darkness, some areas and suburbs were without electricity for anything from a quarter of an hour to three hours, thus contributing to the general panic.
If the cause of the earthquake may have had a mythic explanation, the result was more in the realm of epic. According to police reports at least eighty percent of the population fled from their homes into the streets, squares and parks. Within minutes there were a quarter of a million cars attempting to circulate. Some of the drivers were motivated by the impulse to simply get out of their houses, others by the idea of getting out of the city to suburbs which soon filled up with relatives, or to summer homes on the coast.
Since, however, the traffic light system was not working in the partial blackout, tens of thousands sat hopelessly stranded in their cars. As few traffic policemen were on duty at this hour, citizens tried to help alleviate the situation. Three-wheeled vehicles and trucks of all sizes piled high with belongings with families huddled under blankets in the back joined in the ineffectual exodus. A single petrol station open at that hour on a main avenue leading north had a double queue of cars which extended for several blocks. Despite this bedlam, however, by dawn an estimated one million people had evacuated the city.
Television and radio continued operating through the night, presumably to inform or divert. For its part TV carried a series of documentary films shot in locations like Cephallonia and the Peloponnesus, pointing out the reconstruction which had taken place after the disastrous earthquakes of the recent past,, and in Santorini where the ancient cataclysm was referred to.
Following several hundred aftershocks, a second earthquake registering 6.2 on the Richter scale occurred at 4:40 a.m., followed by a diminishing number of tremors. This pattern continued, although always lessening, for a week. Earthquake jokes circulated almost as fast as earthquake rumors. The first, and best, sprang up as if by spontaneous generation, attributing the event to the Greek earth’s rejection of the body of Queen Frederika, who had been buried at Tatoi twelve days before. Wednesday, February 25, should have been a normal mid-week day characterized by work, traffic and air pollution. With most businesses and all schools closed, however, it had a holiday atmosphere, with only the mad, the intrepid or those born in California circulating in the streets. The tent-cities which had sprung up in the squares and parks became the centers of social life. Among the positive results from the earthquakes were people suffering from twisted leg nerves who claimed that they could walk comfortably for the first time in years; and clocks which were thought to be irreparable but began functioning again.
The night after the first big shock Athens had a new TV hero in the person of Professor John Drakopoulos, director of Athens Institute of Seismology. His geological explanations and prognostications were so lucid and reasonable that many felt that if he had been given prime time the night before much of the panic might have been avoided. In the weeks that followed, Professor Drakopoulos must have spent much time getting in and out of his pajamas in order to appear posthaste on the tube to soothe his fretful audiences.
Given the force of these quakes and the proximity of the epicenter, physical damage was remarkably slight in Athens. Of the twenty persons who died, only six were positively the victims of Poseidon; the rest of panic, suggesting that the famous exclamation, “The Great God Pan is dead!” is far from true. However, five hotels collapsed in areas closer to the epicenter, at Loutraki and Kineta. No one was injured in these collapses, but they gave rise to an anecdote in which the construction materials themselves — brick, cement and the iron rods which support them – were brought to trial. In defense, Brick, called first, said; “I’m not to blame. I’m just baked clay.” Concrete, following, said: “I’m not to blame. I’m just sand and cement.” Finally, Iron said: “I’m not to blame. I wasn’t there.” These faulty constructions had been built in the time of the Junta when many buildings were built without permits, or when permits were given carelessly and construction inspection was cursory or non-existent. Although the damage could only be roughly estimated it was thought that about 10,000 buildings in Athens had been affected and 2,000 of these might be in some degree of danger.
The brunt of the third earthquake, which took place two minutes before midnight on May 4, was mainly felt in Boeotia, partly flattening the village which lies on the site of ancient Plataea. Although the damage in Athens was slight, it was reported that three-quarters of the populace again evacuated their houses. The degree registered on the Richter scale, always referred to with proper scientific exactitude as “openended” was 6.2. The effect of this quake, eight days after the first, on Athenians was largely psychological and people began to realize that the duration of earthquake experience was itself open-ended. Although the exodus out of the city was minor on this occasion, the tent-cities in the parks and squares were beginning to take on a permanent look. If it was panic that first brought people there, it was the inveterate gregariousness of Greeks that kept them there. These refugee areas proved to be true refuges, providing for their inhabitants an informal, friendly society, in which music was played, wine drunk together and stories exchanged — something which life in Athenian flats so notably lacks. If the favorite occupation of a city is sitting in outdoor cafes when the weather is good, why not live semi-permanently outside in a tent?
In mid-March rumors and tales of the supernatural were still circulating. On March 15, a mysterious woman completing a taxi ride to Peristeri asked the cabbie to take her bags out of the trunk. He denied having put any bags in. She insisted, however, and indeed there were two bags there, filled with rubble and ashes. “That is what Athens will be reduced to!” she exclaimed and promptly vanished. Within hours this story (with a few variations) was being heard throughout the city. Three days later a well-known medium changed his mind and said that Athens would not be entirely destroyed on March 19, to the apparent relief of many quite rational people.
As the tireless Professor Drakopoulos said on March 5, “We must simply learn to live with earthquakes.” And in one way or another, this is what Athenians were learning to do. If the ground was still agitated under one’s feet, it was necessary to maintain a philosophical, Wordsworthian calm:
“The horse is taught his manage, and the wind
Of heaven wheels round and treads in his own steps,
Year follows year, the tide returns again
Day follows day, all things have second birth;
The earthquake is not satisfied at once.”
Tempest in a Coffee Cup
The outdoor life of the city has been threatened by a controversy which has erupted between the municipal government and the city’scafes and sweetshops. The city rents out space on its sidewalks, and in its parks and squares where these establishments put out chairs and tables at which Athenians and tourists idle away so many of their pleasantest hours.
The city council in March, however, drastically raised the annual cost of one square meter of space in the squares of Syntagma, Kolonaki and Fokionos Negri from 720 to 6,000 drachmas, a percentage rise of 850%, and up to 5,000 drachmas in other, less socially prominent areas. Cafe and sweetshop owners at once countered by saying that they will not be putting out their furniture this year. Mayor Beis has argued that while the rental prices have been stabile for years, the cost of ice cream and coffee has been rising steadily — along with costs of running the city – and that cafes should be willing to part with a modest percentage of their greater profits, the yearly rental being equal to the price of only one hundred ice creams. The shop owners have retorted that they already pay larger salaries, higher rentals on their indoor space and that the outdoor rental rate per year is high enough since they can operate only 120 days out of the year.
The mayor is considering a solution by which the city itself will go into commerce and set up city-owned establishments on a concession basis where Athenians can take their outdoor morning coffee. The fear in this case is that to save space, the Athenian will be forced to take his refreshment standing up and gulping down his coffee, whereas his classic preference is not only to sit but to sprawl about for hours. The economics of the matter become quite hair-raising wfien one calculates that a customer who occupied one table and four chairs for two. hours would have to consume seven cups of Nescafe in order to have the establishment he is frequenting make any profit. In a mid-March, post-earthquake context when refugee tents were already taking up so much open city space and the Ministry of Health was in the midst of a campaign which connected the consumption of coffee with cancer of the pancreas, it looked as if the average Athenian, if he was to find any comfort and safety at all, would have to sip mountain tea reclining on a cot set up on the Acropolis.
