Aegean Earthquakes

[Karyn 1]

It's been a bumpy few days here in the Aegean, lots of little earthquakes and a couple of more substantial ones strong enough to rattle your fillings.A 4.9 on Thursday night was the worst I have ever felt here in five years, and the 4 this morning got a lot of people out of bed really quickly.Here's the blog I wrote about the last few days - Tie up your Raki, there may be aftershocksKaryn

[Abi 663]

Karyn that really was a lovely read, thank you for sharing it. Fortunely I live in the north of Turkey so we are not really bothered with earthquakes thank goodness.

[chalapip 32]

interesting..havent felt anything our way...im sure if i had i too would be mentioning it! no way i would live in istanbul or in tall flats in this country!

[benhalterci 7]

Lucid, and no way *wink* would I live in the middle of nowhere! It's Istanbul for me or forget it I'm afraid.But yes, this is a serious subject. The last tremor (I think that's the correct word when the earth shakes but doesn't open) was a couple of months or less back and I was sitting on my sofa when it shook as if I was on a boat in choppy seas! It lasted a very short time and I would have thought I'd dreamt it but it was in Hurriyet next day.My friend of a good few years, a Turkish military officer, was at his workplace in Golcuk when the big one happened. He was actually standing on the dock and suddenly it started to sink into the sea! He ran like the wind but then saw that his car was parked there and ran back to drive it away before the dock sank!!! In his place I'd have left it.It's the first time he's talked about it to me in all these years. He said it's because he's trying to forget about it. Five of his closer friends died and scores of acquaintances. He spent the next few days digging people out of the rubble, as a military man he was obliged to help and he said it looked like the end of the world. He'd never seen so many corpses.Despite the risks, like many others, I chose to live in Istanbul even though there is only a narrow stairwell in this house with no fire escape in this old building! If we all didn't want to live here because of the deprem risk then Istanbul woulld be basically deserted.

[Meral 483]

I myself felt nothing in Çeşme, but my neighbour who couldn't sleep said she felt a mild tremor at 3am that morning. My mother-in-law phoned from Ankara that evening, in a panic after hearing the news on TV, to make sure we were OK. We had a series of tremors like this a few years ago too, but the villagers just take it all in their stride. So far they've always been benign.......... but next time ????? /public/style_emoticons/">http://www.turkeycentral.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink[1].gif