Shattering memories – updated

One day, while wandering around Lekfada Island (In the Ionian, in case you didn’t know), we came across this deserted village. Houses broken down and looking as if they might have been left in a hurry. We mused about earthquakes, displaced ethnicities, economic disaster etc and it was only  later that we found that the village had been hastily abandoned after a traumatic earthquake some years previously.

Now earthquakes are nothing new in this region and they are caused by three tectonic plates which meet in the area of Kefalonia, Ithika and Zakynthos (Zanti). Apparently the plates, which are in constant motion are causing Greece to sink slowly into the Aegean. A major quake centred on nearby Kefalonia in 1953 was felt in Lefkada, but the real damage was likely done by one in Lefkada on August 14, 2003 – 50 years to the week after the 1953 quake.

I find it hard, if not impossible, to imagine such trauma. We regularly hear of earthquakes and other equivalent tragedies on the TV and radio, yet we are inevitably somewhat dissociated and insulated from them. Here I am so many years after the poor people watched and heard and felt as their word tumbled around them, not realising in the instant that they were witnessing the end of their village. The sadness was almost overwhelming, even so may years later.

As we wandered, we found NO evidence of the people who had probably lived here for centuries. Nothing, zip, zilch. Perhaps the odd bit of plastic suggesting that someone was trying, or had been trying, to keep the walls dry (essential if they are not to deteriorate beyond repair). A herd of goats could be heard tingling away at the far end of the village when we noticed the odd sign of regeneration starting. Was this one old owner returning? Was it the beginning of a complete rebuilding? Who knows? Whatever was happening, it was a sign of hope, a sign that perhaps this centuries-old village was not dead for all time.

UPDATE

Thanks to the wonder of Tripadvisor Forums I have found out more about this village. Firstly, that it is not on Lefkada but actually on the mainland just across the water and is called Palia Plagia. It is sometimes known as Old Plagia because the village has apparently been moved nearer to the coast after the earthquake that caused the devastation in the photos above. Here is a Google map of the location.