Following Monday morning’s earthquake – the largest in decades, but one which mercifully spared the country any damages – talk has all been about ‘what if?’
What if the earthquake had been larger? Would the country be prepared? Much of this talk is sensationalist nonsense, explain experts, as in the case of a really high intensity quake, building specifications would not make a lot of difference, one way or the other.
But Expresso this week has led on the ‘shock’ news that 195,000 Lisbon residents live in homes that were not built to earthquake standards. Mafra, says the paper, is the only municipality on the mainland that has a special ‘escape plan’ designed for the population in the event of an earthquake, or similar natural disaster.
In short, neither the country, nor the capital, can say it is ‘prepared’ for a large-scale catastrophe. We just have to hope that we stick to earthquakes of the kind that hit at 5.11 last Monday, and ‘woke’ large numbers of people up…
