An Earthquake in Lemnos

An Earthquake in Lemnos


In For many years the Minoans controlled the seas trading with other islands from their palaces in Crete. When a large earthquake destroyed the nearby island of Thera (Santorini) in 1450 BC the Minoan city of Knossos, which was just 70 miles away, was also affected. The effects of the earthquake were catastrophic for the Minoans, their palaces and large fleets of ships were destroyed. This contributed to the destruction of the whole Minoan civilization.


Modern earthquake in Crete

 



 

 

 

The Aegean islands often have small earthquakes and sometimes more severe ones. Poliochni was inhabited for nearly four thousand year’s until an earthquake destroyed it in 2100BC. Today you can visit the ruins of Poliochni and see a model of how the town once looked. There was an earthquake in 330 B.C. that destroyed much of eastern Limnos. A recent earthquake in Lemnos, in 1968, destroyed village of Paleo Pedino

Recent earthquake in Lemnos

In case you haven’t seen the news we have had an earthquake in Lemnos. It was the biggest I've ever been in, 6.8 with the epicentre lying between Lemnos and Samothrace. It was felt in Turkey and Greece.

An Earthquake Two Days Ago?

No! It looked like an earthquake but this is what our furno looked like when Anestis and Marcos started working on it!

But we have just had one! Takis and I were sitting with the first guests of the year on the terrace and we looked at each other with consternation, thinking at first that a very large truck was passing. But then the terrace heaved and the whole house shook back and forth. I yelled earthquake and we all ran out into the garden and after a couple of minutes it died down.

 



Our kitchen before the cooks arrived

Yesterday was a very eventful day, even before the earthquake!  We had decided to light the furno and bake bread. We lit it the day before to heat it up and then reheated it at ten on the next day.



We lit the fire to warm the oven the day before











 



 

 

 

 

 

The next day we relit the furrno

 

Rosemary, our guest, made four beautiful whole wheat loaves and Takis made a fish and veggie dish. (As we were preparing it we had an electrical outage, so we all laughed saying how good it was that we had the furno going. 

Takis making his fish and vegetable dish (with lemon and wine)

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Rosemary kneading the dough.







The bread rising


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Watched bread takes a while to rise!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quietly waiting for the bread to cook when!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quake arrived just after twelve while we were waiting for the loaves to brown. What a shock. Afterwards our neighbours came around to see if we were OK, and we all compared notes. Our guests went onto their iPods etc. to find out what the internet was saying about the quake. A few very old houses came down in Lemnos and nearby very old wall fell and damaged a car. Plus I think there was a slight after-shock later that night. But all is well.



After the quake, a nearby garden wall!

And the furno meal was wonderful. The loaves were perfect, and so was the fish and veg dish. We were a bit worried about going into the house for a siesta after lunch but by then Takis really needed one. I'm glad our adventure was no worse, and I've not heard of any serious losses anywhere else.

 

The bread comes out of the furno, perfect. And we all sat down to our meal!