Last week's earthquake proved quite a shock to us in Britain - and a truly moving experience for me.
The earthquake in Britain last week may have only hit 5.2 on the Richter scale, but it was quite enough for us. We’re not used to climatic or geological extremes on this small island – and in our book even small earthquakes count as extreme: the sort of thing that happens ‘abroad’. The epicentre of the one last week was in Lincolnshire, 180 miles away from where I live in south London. But I still heard it – a loud rumbling in the night, and then felt it when my bed seemed to ripple underneath me in a rather alarming fashion. I couldn’t imagine what it was – well, an earthquake in England? – and went back to sleep. It was only when I heard the radio the next morning that I realised what had happened.
Italy, of course, has a less stable geology than Britain. An earthquake, for example, hit Umbria in 1997, killing 10 people and causing terrible damage to historical sites such as the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi. And there are active volcanoes on the islands of Sicily (Etna) and Stromboli and, most famously, on the mainland near Pompeii. While the volcanoes on Sicily and Stromboli dramatically puff smoke into the air, Vesuvius broods in a rather sulky fashion – making it far more dangerous than the others.
