Greece has again been visited by a severe earthquake of
which the centre appears to have been Thebes. That town has been almost totally destroyed, with the villages in its neighbourhood, the shock extending to Atalanti on the Eubcean Strait. Here the principal, or rather only, street has been levelled, and the pier swallowed up by the sea. The movement does not appear to have been violent, but it was repeated five or six times; the churches fell in, and a great many worshippers were buried in their ruins, the total loss of life probably exceeding three hundred. That appears small for so formidable a shock, but the same thing was noticed in the earthquake on the Riviera, and in many small earthquakes in South America. The first shock is, in fact, seldom the strongest, but it serves to send the inhabitants headlong out into places where, unless the earth opens, they are comparatively safe. The rush is instinctive, and is known to have been made by persons who were, to their own consciousness at all events, fast asleep.
Previous page
