Makis Stefanatos

The story of the earthquake is something which is indelible in my memory and I'll tell you later on why it is so.

The story starts from my relatives because the brother of my mother lived here next door.

The first earthquake, took place at 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, and I was with some friends because it was Sunday (9th August, 1953), swimming at Kalamia. We ran to Argostoli to see what had happened and to be with our families.

Since I was young I was working with my uncle and the second earthquake happened on Tuesday when I was with my uncle working in Kourkoumelata, in a church, inside the altar of the church. It was about 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning.

We were more or less asleep and when this happened we walked from Kourkoumelata to Argostoli, wondering what had happened to our families; my family and my uncle's family.

A friend of mine, Makis, was with me when this second earthquake happened early in the morning, he was a neighbour and we came down together as he also wanted to see what had happened to his family.

After the second earthquake everyone started worrying and we decided not to live in the houses anymore so we tried to find a place outdoors somewhere. The street near here which was just a small street then, came only up to the top and there were fields filled with olive trees and rocks and it was not a built up area so we put up a tent by the house - not more than 30 metres from here. My father was not here as he was on the mainland taking mineral baths, maybe the same place as Stathis's father.

My mother gathered all the three children - myself, Panagis and my sister, and we camped under the olive trees, trying to collect everything that we needed because we had decided that we would stay outside. We were all gathered here because next to this area was my uncle's house - the whole family was near there, we were all together.

Where we were camping, my friend Makis, the one who was with me during the second earthquake, he came to visit us, to see how we were.

My uncle's small daughter, she was about 2 years olds, had just had an operation to have her tonsils removed. My aunt asked me to go to the house of my grandmother, which was nearby, to go in the basement and get a cradle for the small child who had had the operation. There were three of us who went down there, myself, my friend Makis and another friend who had a patisserie. These things took place on Wednesday morning (12th August), before the big earthquake. So, as soon as we went in, the three of us, the big earthquake happened.

The other lad, not Makis, the older one - he was married - when the earthquake happened he shouted "Why did you send me?" And he disappeared because he was inside and my other friend and I managed to get out of the hatch too. We started running in the narrow streets and I went into a garden where everything was falling, and I was covered by the stones and the falling items.

Behind me, the other two followed, the older lad and Makis, my friend. Although I was injured with the stones and so on, I managed to keep going - and my friend Makis followed and the other man - and we ran to where we had our tent under the olive trees. As we were running to the place where our tent was, the third one was my friend Makis, although he came out from the remains of the house and he was running, he was just running past a two storey house as it collapsed. In the chaos that followed we didn't know where he was. As we were climbing over a small wall to get to the olive trees, we turned towards Argostoli and we saw a cloud, like a mushroom, rising up. Because I couldn't see Makis and was worried, I wanted to go back down and find him but my mother started crying and wouldn't let me go anywhere. At that moment we couldn't see anything because of the cloud of dust.

In the days after the earthquake everybody wanted to leave the island, everybody ran from wherever they were, to try, by any means, to escape. Having not seen my friend Makis, I hoped that he had followed everyone going to the harbour and I was wishing that he was among those that ran down and was safe.

After a couple of days we were searching for him and hoping that he was among the people camping by the harbour, but we couldn't see him. We looked around this area here (by their tent) but he was covered with stones and debris and we couldn't find him or see him so we didn't know what had happened to him.

My friend Makis and I were very close. He was missing, no one knew what had happened to him. A few weeks later, when they started to remove all the rubble from the damaged houses, they found his bones under the stones. This is the reason why I'll never forget the earthquake, we were very close.

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Two to three weeks after the earthquake they took all the small boys to a children's camp which was in Volos in another part of Greece, on the mainland, between Salonika and Athens, and they took all the boys from Argostoli there. Some of them wanted to go and some didn't but they had to be protected. They also did the same with the girls, took them to another children's camp where all the girls were. I was 13 years old at the time and my brother Panagis came too. We were there for 6 or 7 months. We could have gone earlier but the idea of us being there was so that we could be psychologically supported, because of the shock of the earthquake, they took us away from that, and looked after us, proper food and sleeping conditions.

Things were very difficult after the earthquake, tents were dropped by parachute, they were rationing bread, they were giving blankets so that life could start going on.

People were taking wood from the damaged houses to make new wooden houses. Sometime after the earthquake the town was flattened, virtually everything was flattened and the town looked like a football ground. Everything was cleaned and they started to make plans for the new town. There were two plans, one plan made by the military people - which was rejected! There was so much collected from abroad and from within Greece. They raised the price of the stamp, it was 1 drachma and they raised it to 1.5 drachmas in order to raise money for the people of Kefalonia. Matches cost 50 lepta and that was increased to 1 drachma, so they collected a lot of money. Out of this they gave a certain amount to help people make a start on re-building their house. Everyone who had had a house was given the same amount of money, maybe enough to build the skeleton of the new house.

There were new arrangements made for the land. You got as much as you had before, but maybe not in the same place, depending on the new street plans. This house is built on land that was outside the town before, not on the same plot where our house had been. The street in front of our house used to be the limit of the town and above there was nothing but trees and rocks.

Question: When you've got nothing, how do you start to re-build your life?

Most of the people started by taking wood from the old houses and building barracks, which they were either selling or giving to people. The area where the new market is, behind the bus station, this area was filled with wooden barracks. They were all built like the old Red Cross building down by the old marina. Public services, banks and things like that were accommodated in these barracks and slowly, slowly, traders were making these barracks and re-starting their trade, greengrocers and so on. If they had no money the state made them buildings, Nissen huts, out of galvanised plate - there is one near where the Fire Station used to be.

All the people of the town were scattered, many were down in the fields were the industrial area is now. They were there with no toilets, no facilities, although temporary stand pipes were put in for water.

People were very courageous as there had not been much time between the Second World War, then the Civil War and all the suffering of that. When the earthquake happened they were ready for more hardship. Many countries contributed after the earthquake. Sweden made the children's hospital and the other hospital, along that street which is called 'Sweden' street. There are other wooden houses built by the Serbs. Other countries also sent parcels of clothes as no one had money to buy anything. For 4 or 5 years after the earthquake no one could afford to buy anything - just imagine, an overcoat, at that time cost, 900 drachmas and the daily wages of the workers was 50 drachmas, so he had to work nearly 20 days in order to buy an overcoat.

Question: How do you feel now when we have earthquakes?

As I am a builder I know that the houses are much better built than they were in 1953 and the safest place is inside the house - this is also what I have taught my children. So, when we have earthquakes now I stay inside. If there is more than one tremor you still get the feeling that the earth is going to sink - you feel very vulnerable then.