by Iro Kalliga, Philosophy PhD Candidate, University of Athens
In Greek mythology Enceladus was the leader of the Giants. According to the dominant narrative he was imprisoned by the goddess Athena beneath Etna, the active volcano on Sicily’s eastern coast, where his futile attempts to escape are the cause of earthquakes. He made one such effort in 1953 and struck Kefalonia (and Zakynthos and Lefkada), leaving in his seismic wake 800 dead, 1,690 injured, 145,052 homeless and an island in ruins.
It all began on the 9th of August, 1953, when the inhabitants of Kefalonia, people of both mountain and sea accustomed to living in harmony with mother nature, came to feel her raw power and naked violence. They were shaken by the first in a series of angry seismic tremors with a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale. The first signs of damage were already apparent, roof tiles and balconies fell to the ground, everywhere door and window frames were cracked. Despite the damage many people returned to their homes. But their fear would be rekindled on the 11th of August by another earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 which drove many to seek the safety of open spaces. My aunt Roxani, then around 12 years old, remembers grabbing my then two-year-old father from a crib covered in rubble and running to an olive grove.
If the second quake plunged the knife deeper, creating additional headaches in the form of cracks in the roads, pavements and harbours, it paled in comparison with what Kefalonia’s inhabitants would live through the following day. On the 12th of August the support that had been sent from mainland Greece and Corfu was transformed into a merely symbolic gesture unable to temper Enceladus’s destructive rage. The 7.2 Richter earthquake mocked any attempt to protect human life.
My grandmother, Virginia Santa, despite her 92 years of age holds in her weakened memory one solitary image to this day: “Everyone was covered with dust. A huge cloud of dust rose up so high that you couldn’t see the sky.” And that is logical because the houses on Kefalonia in the 20th century were made of stone, clay and hay. Only following the 1953 milestone of destruction and rebuilding would strict anti-seismic building regulations be imposed on the island.
Therefore the destruction had the colour of a living-dead shade of white and spread despair to every living soul capable of finding their senses. Dead and injured inhabitants were trapped in the ruins, trees were uprooted, roads were torn, boulders shaken loose by the quake plowed into villages. The scene of devastation was completed by the interspersed cries of people desperately searching for their loved ones in the rubble or injured islanders shouting in pain. Electricity and communication lines were cut. The resulting in-between state, the limbo between existing and not, between life and death and a complete inability to cope, gave rise to a peculiar sense of equality as the homeless islanders gathered in open spaces to spend the night. The wealthy and the poor were all subject to the same forces.
Equality and an inability to cope. The social distinctions crumbled together with the stone houses. The terror was equally unrelenting for all, and led many residents to seek to leave the island, despite the government having forbidden this. Many succeeded in doing so. The desperation of the islanders was relieved first by the Israelis, who together with water, crackers, sugar and chocolate brought a sense of control even if that was in the aftermath of a calamity. Naval ships from Britain Italy and France followed together with American assistance from the air. Food, medicine and water were provided to the calm but inconsolable victims.
Subsequently those trapped in rubble were freed, roads were opened and dangerous buildings were demolished. The fear that a wave of refugees would move to mainland Greece caused the authorities, in addition to prohibiting their movement, to provide incentives for residents to stay on the island. Most notably the Sub-Ministry of Earthquake Stricken Islands was created with headquarters in Kefalonia’s capital, Argostoli which bypassed bureaucratic red tape and greatly accelerated the process of getting relief to victims.
The island slowly began to rise again, in a new form. A strong will to live and proper planning showed the island in a new light: as more robust and more capable of handling the never-ending threat posed by Enceladus. Most of the new buildings have incorporated into their foundations the songs and poems of the stricken islanders which have entered into the collective consciousness as a warning that no one can beat the raw power of nature.
Those who fail to respect this principle, proven through experience, will remain exposed the next time the angry Giant decides to wake.
BBC Video of the aftermath of the 1953 earthquake: