Photos

Tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, forest fires- it seems that we are being constantly reminded that after all our lives are not as secure as we pretend them to be and that the crust on which we build our lives is thin indeed while underneath is molten rock waiting to be released.

I prepared this photo a while back. It is of stone statues, which I assume adorned the Skopje Railway Station, since they were lined up by the footpath and had been waiting since 1963. I was struck by the way they were lined up, like victims awaiting burial.
So as Australia’s neighbours are experiencing pain and loss and we in Australia cannot account for more than one hundred of our citizens in Sumatra, I decided to post this photo in recognition of the pain which people are experiencing.

The photo was scanned from an old slide and I added the grainy effect for something different..

The 1963 Skopje earthquake (Macedonian: Скопски земјотрес 1963, transliterated Skopski zemjotres 1963) was an 6.1 monument magnitude earthquake which occurred in Skopje, SR Macedonia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) then part of the SFR Yugoslavia, on July 26, 1963 which killed over 1,070 people, injured between 3,000 and 4,000 and left between 120,000 to 200,000 people homeless. Between 75 and 80 percent of the city was destroyed.
The earthquake, which measured 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale (equivalent to 6.9 on the richter scale), occurred on July 26, 1963 at 4:17 am UTC (5:17 am local time) in Skopje, Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then part of SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Macedonia). The tremor lasted for 20 seconds and was felt mostly along the Vardar River Valley

Symbol of the earthquake: The Old Railway Station in Skopje. The clock stopped at 5.17 on July 26, 1963. Today the building is used by the Museum of the City of Skopje (Muzej na grad Skopje). Eighty percent of the city was destroyed by the earthquake, and numerous cultural monuments were seriously damaged. The losses from the quake amounted to a massive 150% of Macedonia's GNP at the time and 15% of Yugoslavia's GNP. A major international relief effort saw the city rebuilt quickly, though much of its old neo-classical charm was lost in the process. The new master plan of the city was created by the then leading Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. The ruins of the old Skopje train station which was destroyed in the earthquake remain today as a memorial to the victims along with an adjacent museum.