Earth Movers

All that was left was a framed and autographed photo of the Hollywood Star Nicholas Cage, a plastic replica Wehrmacht hand grenade and a drinks mat endorsed by the film crew of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

We had been starstruck by the novel and film of the book of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and in pursuit of something or other we had set off to holiday on the island of Kefalonia, to the west of the Greek mainland.

The settings for the key scenes of the film could not be found apart from the main geographical and physical topography of the island. All the buildings in the film had been fabricated from wood with a stone-effect exterior moulded from Plaster of Paris and, if surviving the many nautical miles in transport, were now probably stored in a studio warehouse in California.

The reason for this high level of simulation was that the island had been devastated by a massive earthquake in the 1950's and the classical Venetian influenced buildings of the main city, Argostoli and the main provincial towns had been lost in the main tremor, rattled to dust in the aftershocks or demolished on the grounds of instability and a hazard to the public.

Up on the hillsides we had seen hundreds of abandoned villas and farmhouses which were not cost effective or legally permissible to remove and lesser structures including garden and retaining walls were ripped and scarred by the ravages of the earthquake.

We, in the UK , are truly fortunate not to be in one of the volatile tectonic regions of the world as there is nothing like an earthquake to set you back a few years in the pursuit of a normal life.

The events of the early hours tremor of February 27th 2008 therefore created absolute terror and a great sense of humility when it rocked our corner of East Yorkshire.

Eldest daughter pre-empted the actual sustained vibration of the quake, measured at 5.2 on the Richter Scale , by screaming out "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttthhhhhhhhqwwwwwwwwaaaayyyyyyyyykkkkkkkkke" just seconds before the rest of the family were shaken out of our beds.

 I have no idea how she sensed that the earth was shifting but you do hear of such things as an eerie silence, the barking of dogs or the flight of wild birds as constituting a natural alert in such circumstances.

I think that she was already in our bedroom when the sounds and sensations were experienced, being totally alien to UK inhabitants, but very familiar through graphic TV reports from around the world, disaster movies and, from a family visit to The British Museum, where they had a Japanese Earthquake Experience consisting of a gyrating hydraulic platform to attempt to simulate a lesser tremor from the 1995 Kobe City event.

The strange noise lasted about 30 seconds and the impact was akin to having your seat back kicked in by unruly kids in a cinema, dramatic but persistently annoying.

Then, immediately after, just a perfect silence if you discounted the cacophony of domestic security alarms going off in the neighbourhood.

First thing in a Civil Emergency situation is to switch on to local radio. The graveyard shift presenter was already receiving calls about the shaking although from the diplomatic tone of his voice you could tell he was quite used to receiving crank based calls from drunks at about the same time every day on similar earth-moving topics.

Gradually the news machine took on the story and by the 8am TV news there were eye witness accounts of chimney pots falling to the street, cracks appearing in walls and ceilings and a few incidences of structural weakness causing concern to the Borough Engineers.

I could see no tangible worsening of my own collection of masonry and plaster cracks over which I conducted regular monitoring on a casual interest basis.

Over the following weeks I did get commissioned to advise on a few cases of earthquake damage from concerned homeowners.

These did start to form a distinct pattern.

The western side of the Hull urban area where becoming elevated above the floodplain has a chalk strata. The quake, whose epicentre was some 40 miles south in rural Lincolnshire, had potential to rock and jar the chalk causing damage as opposed to the induced jelly wobble of the clay based soils further east.

Any old Victorian plasterwork, the dry horsehair bonded type forced onto willow latts, was particularly vulnerable from working loose and my analysis attributed two large ceiling collapses and associated damage directly to the earthquake rather than just being age related or poor maintenance led wear and tear or heavy handed paper-stripping by enthusiastic DIY'ers.

The strangest incident was in an older house just to the north of Hull city centre. The owners, a nice elderly couple had splashed out on new fitted carpets for the staircase, landing and front bedroom and these had been put in place professionally just two days before the quake date.

They then went away for a weeks stay-away with relatives.

On their subsequent return to the house, an end of terrace two-up, two-down example, they discovered that there had developed a uniform gap of two centimetres between the inner face of the gable end wall and the new carpets for the full length of the wall. Sighting in line along the gable wall did indicate a very slight bellying and slumping just at corresponding first floor level.

In the absence of any mitigating factors the homeowners were successful in their insurance claim for damage arising from an earthquake and inspite of strong resistance from their insurers to accept that, in the UK, such a peril could actually be experienced.

We should be thankful.