Earthquake
activity in February: A large number of earthquake this month - some quite
powerful - leading to speculation about a 'Big' quake being imminent!
Quickly rebuffed. 04 Feb: 4.2 Richter Scale,
02.30am. Epicenter in the region of Halandistra, near Patras, North West of
Athens.
(item4)
Link
to Story. 04 Feb: 5.4 Richter Scale,
10.25pm. Epicenter in the region Erymanthos, Achaia 20km from Patras.
04 Feb: 5.5
Richter Scale, 12.15am. Epicenter in the region South of Patras.
(item2)
Link
to Story.
14 Feb: Twin Quakes:-
6.5
Richter Scale, 12.09noon.
6.4
Richter Scale, 14.09pm. Undersea epicenter off south of Methoni, Southern
Peloponnese. Lasting about 15 seconds, the quake was felt throughout Greece and
as far north as Italy and South as far as Cairo. Panic was reported in some areas.
Link
to Story. 17 Feb: 4.4 Richter Scale,
3.30pm. Epicenter Mount Parthina, 16Km North of Athens.
(item1)
Link
to Story.
19 Feb: 4.0 Richter Scale,
07.00am. Epicenter in the region of mount Parthina, North of Athens.
No Link. 20 Feb: 5.5
Richter Scale, 07.05am. Epicenter in the region South of Patras. Epicenter
Mount Parthina, 16Km North of Athens.
(item
4)
Link
to Story. 20 Feb: 6.1 Richter Scale,
8.30pm. Undersea epicenter off the Southern Peloponnese
20 Feb: 5.4 Richter Scale,
01.00am. Undersea epicenter off the Ionian island of Kythera.
(item1)
Link
to Story. 22 Feb: 4.9 Richter Scale,
06.57am. Undersea epicenter off the Ionian island of Zakinthos.
(item3)
Link
to Story.
29 Feb: 4.4 Richter Scale,
12.00noon. Epicenter Servia, near Kozani, Northern Greece.
ERT - No Link.
Earthquakes are a common feature of life in Greece and rarely cause damage or
injury to people.
Recent comment has centered upon reassuring that whilst another Athens
(1999) 'quake is unlikely (Link),
a Tsunami caused by a 'quake occurs every 136 years Link
to story.
States in the Balkan region are now cooperating in sharing information. Link
To Story.
There are certain existing buildings considered to be at risk from major
earthquakes. Link
to story. These buildings, which include a number of schools, are being
investigated with the objective of safety. Link
to story. Engineers are also calling upon the government to institute
checks on old bridges in Greece.
Link (Item6.)
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A Little Extra News....
Last month I said "Here we are, back in our most beautiful place in the
world - in Crete. The land where a smile is worth a thousand words and where
people talk incessantly!"
What I failed to say was that, at least in spring and early summer, the
beautiful place/people/gatherings were supplemented by something else - a real,
true-life bonus! As winter grey skies became pastel pale blue - setting off the
white snow capped peaks of the Omalos peaks, standing majestically sunlit about
15Km away, the spring flowers started to show. Slowly (maybe cautiously) at
first, but gradually increasing speed and multiplying in number until, at the
end of the month, the whole of north western Crete seemed ablaze with colour.
Swarms of roadside white daisies gave way to the almost ever present yellows of
the beautiful Oxalis pes - fields full. Whilst down on the beach the
pastel purple/pink/white flowers of the Mathiola tricuspidata (a Cress)
mingled with the egg yolk yellows and light green foliage of Anthemis rigida.
Away from the coast Anemone coronaria - predominantly pastel blues and
purples broken by the occasional red and yellow of Turban Buttercups -
Ranunculus asiaticus, although we saw no white specimens.
Climbing to the Garrigue (Phrygana) and olive groves at the base of Rodopos peninsula
proper revealed superb examples of the Orchid family - the Giant Orchid -
Barlia robertiana, the beautiful Pink Butterfly Orchid - Orchis
papilionacea and a sheer multitude of the sometimes elusive creamy white and
pink of Orchis lactea. And on...and... on... Pure magic!
Now, only a few short days later the entire north west appears to be alive.
Birds, bees, flowers , insects, lizards - the whole gamut of our flora and fauna
is appearing rapidly - competing at full boost to win and fill as much
space as possible. In short, north western Crete is alive...
I suppose that one could say alive about London, Paris, Berlin or
Rome - But you won't see anything to rival Cretan countryside in any European
city.
Kalos Ilthate Stin Kriti
WB.
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A Little
Site News.
New! Commencing this month -
A wildlife diary from Andrew Bell - "Countryman in
Crete".
We are now into our second month
of a major upgrading of the entire site. Our gallery pages are being updated,
in some cases are already updated,
and new galleries added. Two new galleries went on-line last month - our 2007
Calendar (Wild flowers - our best yet) - is about to follow.
Photo Galleries...
New Last month...
CretanVista Wildlife Gallery - the first two pages -
the first 48 unique photographs,
including some rare specimens of the Cretan fauna. Some of is quite
beautiful, some a bit scary/creepy, but all now add to our wildlife page and
the ornithology gallery pages. Not all sun, sea and sand maybe, but everything
depicted really is here. Always worth checking where you walk or sit!
Start
here.
Plus...
Chania Gallery.
Our long planned Chania photograph galleries commence with a presentation from
Klaus Dieter Thill, whose photographs of some old buildings in the area of
the Venetian harbour show a little of what we all sometimes miss. Have a look.
Start here.
Klaus will be adding a little text shortly to this new gallery in the near
future, but the gallery itself has been uploaded for appraisal. Do have a look,
especially if you are familiar with Chania - you might just see that which you
so far have not! His other gallery is still on-line:-
Still on-line - Miniature Chapels of Crete.
Klaus-Dieter Thill - author of
Minaturkapellen auf Krista,
a printed photo album detailing some of those enigmatic roadside shrines of
Crete, has now contributed the first page of his Chania on-line gallery. Klaus has supplied photographs for this gallery which is
about to go on-line
here at Cretanvista. Our review of the printed book -
which we have already - is still planned. Klaus is still not keen on that, as the book is not publicly
available, but we hope still to persuade him!
Cretan Art and crafts -
Weaving...
Our updated hand-weaving page is now on-line. This revision includes the
first full project - start to finish! A beautiful traditional craft
producing beautiful products. And much more to follow. *Weaving is in full
swing and dyes are being made up and the photographs taken to add to this
section - and we will be adding our
new looms acquired and new projects started.
Wild Flower Gallery
-
Still at 216 different
wild
flowers - but heading rapidly for 240 -
and...
We are now adding much reference information on redesigned pages!
99% of the photographs have been taken right here at the base of the Rodopos
peninsula. We are now adding the promised revisions - including more detailed references
on each page and more photos of each specimen to follow. We will be
publishing our book - but all the information will remain on line.
Bird Galleries: Gallery
Page 5 developing...
The first pages of our bird photograph gallery went on line in
March 2006. We are now working hard on
adding page 5 - another 12 of Colin Turvey's bird photographs - which will bring
the number up to 60 so far. Colin has been a big plus for Cretanvista.
We still, of course, have our very
first nature gallery...
Contributed by Anastasios Sakoulis, whose book on Cretan wildlife
Moments of Cretan Nature is also on our site as a book
review.
Anastasios contributed 18 pictures of birds for addition to a gallery some
time ago now. We will attach these to our bird-watching pages
as soon as possible.
Another Gallery in the offing...
The Naturally...Crete
a second gallery by
Anastasios, is still in
the works - long overdue and causing a couple of headaches because of colour
match problems but it is progressing and will be worth the effort. If you can't
wait. the book of the same name is readily available from bookstores.
Calendar Photo Galleries:
A new one every year! The 2006 gallery was, of course, the last
calendar to go on-line (LINK). 2007 Calendar gallery is complete and awaiting finalising and
upload. BUT, and (this one has really been well worth anyone's wait), the 2008 calendar
topic finally became 'Wild Flowers of Crete' and the result superb! The gallery
will follow shortly. There are no calendars left.....
GENERAL: There are now
17 galleries
featuring aspects of Cretan life, including sunrise and sunset pictures;
Souda Bay War Cemetery; the gallery of magnificent wild-life pictures by
Anastasios Sakoulis; our own new wildlife gallery; the wild flowers; Chania;
Mhlia traditional village; etc.. etc... etc.... And we have not even nearly
started further new galleries for which the photography is now complete,
including a WWII museum Gallery - watch this space!!
Creating our galleries entails a vast amount of work and is expensive on
expertise, time, effort and not least money. Projects must be chosen; locations
reached; photographs taken; pages developed... A great deal of printing is also
involved. Why? Well...
...27000 plus (and rising) monthly
unique visitor figures to Cretanvista websites were achieved last year. Reward
in itself.
Taking nothing for
granted, we are all hard at work - working on updates
and
getting out and about - obtaining the new information and photographs we
need to keep Cretanvista well to the forefront of websites about Crete. We treasure our visitors...Really!
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