The city of my birth was rocked by a quake yesterday morning, and many buildings were damaged. But my beloved is safe and sound. Hey, what else could I ask for?

Addendum I (March 25, 2020)

By now, quite a bit is known about the earthquake three days ago. Depending on the source, it was somewhere between 5.3 and 5.5 on the Richter scale. As it goes from zero to nine, this was far from a severe one. The same holds for a number of aftershocks that rocked the city the last two days, the most alarming of which were between 3.2 and 3.7 on the same scale. The quake that struck the Croatian capital on November 9, 1880, was 6.3 on the Richter scale, and it damaged the center of the city rather badly (Addendum of November 30, 2016, to “The Rumble,” September 16, 2015). About a thousand and eight-hundred buildings were damaged or destroyed back then. The rebuilding of the city was quick, but it took several years. Surprisingly, only one person was killed by the quake a hundred and forty years ago.

This time around, close to twenty people were wounded, and one child died from injuries a day later. Around six-hundred buildings in the center were damaged, and a good number of them are now uninhabitable. Their repair is a high priority at this stage. In the end, this quake will be quite useful in pinpointing the buildings and building types where protective measures would be needed, and soon, for a stronger quake is always behind the corner in Zagreb, which is located in a region with high seismic risk. There will be many jobs for construction companies in the city and across Croatia.

My beloved first told me that my paintings fell from their battens when the quake struck, and then she sent me a picture of the mess. Only one out of six of them somehow stayed put. Several walls in her apartment got cracked, and plaster fell off in some places. Luckily, there was no greater damage. After roaming the streets for a few hours, she returned home. That day, there were no strong aftershocks, either. This was fortunate, indeed, on account of the coronavirus pandemic. My beloved had nowhere to go while she was out and about, for the whole city was under quarantine. Both police and the army were patrolling the streets to make sure that everything was in order and that people would not gather in numbers. Zagreb’s inhabitants are sure to remember the double whammy for many years to come.

But there is one thing about the earthquake that makes me almost gleeful, I must admit. Many pictures of the city center just after the quake are now available on the World Wide Web. They show rubble covering entire streets and squares. It is mainly crumbled bricks and mortar. Many cars parked along the streets are crushed by the debris, too. Among the pictures, I am thrilled by those that show trodden ornaments that fell from rooftops—such as oversized vases, statues, balls, and pillars with classical capitels. Coming from the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century, they were the jewels of architecture of the time. As I was taught by illustrious modernist architects succeeding the neoclassical period, including my father, they were the first to fall off. And the earthquake in Zagreb offers yet another proof. My father would have been amused, I am pretty sure. “Look,” he would point at the upturned ornaments strewn across the pavement, “what did I tell you?” And we would laugh and laugh in spite of the calamity.

Addendum II (March 27, 2020)

And now for something completely different. I was awoken five days ago by strange sounds in my house. I felt some unusual movement under my futon, too. “Earthquake,” it flashed through my mind. But when I lied on my back to hear and feel better, I could not discern anything special. “Nah,” I concluded quickly enough, and I checked my mobile phone before I tried to fall asleep again. It was 6:25, which I remembered just in case. As I learned when I woke up for good a few hours later, it was 6:24 when the quake actually had struck Zagreb that morning. As the crow flies, the center of the city is only one-hundred and seventy-four kilometers away from Motovun according to Free Map Tools (www.freemaptools.com). Close enough, to be sure.

I had a similar experience some years ago. I felt a tremor in the middle of the night. In the morning I learned that a quake struck somewhere between Modena and Mantova in Northern Italy (“The Earthquake,” May 20, 2012). According to Free Map Tools once again, the two are about two-hundred and forty kilometers away from Motovun. This sensitivity to movements in the earth’s crust must go back millions upon millions of years. But I missed many a quake in Italy in the late 2016, when quite a few of my friends in Motovun reported feeling them. For some reason, I missed them all. Apparently, it all depends on the stage of one’s sleep. In some stages, one is completely indifferent to what is going on around one’s body. To one’s potential detriment, it goes without saying.

Concerning the senses that humans share with animals, I have enjoyed a number of clips captured by surveillance cameras in Zagreb, which show cats running for shelter at top speed just before the quake five days ago. Clearly, they felt the first tremors early enough to avoid their peak. And their speed is amazing to behold. Immediately upon waking, they dashed with tremendous vigor, and they knew exactly where they were headed. There was no dilly-dallying with them in any of the clips I have seen. Such feats are nigh unimaginable for humans, though. Which reminds me of Akira Kurosawa and his “Seven Samurai” (1954). One of the seven could run at top speed immediately after being awoken. So as to always be on the ready, he would sleep in sitting position. Indeed, it takes no less than an exceptional samurai to match any old cat in the street. Ah, the perils of evolution!

Addendum III (March 31, 2020)

According to the news three days after the earthquake that rocked the Croatian capital, around six-hundred buildings in the center were damaged, and a good number of them were uninhabitable. This is what can be found in the first addendum. Well, the numbers have changed in the meanwhile. According to today’s report of a team of experts from the Civil Engineering Faculty at the University of Zagreb, as many as twenty-six-thousand buildings in the center of the city were damaged, and one-thousand and nine-hundred of them were rendered uninhabitable. The repair of the damage, refurbishment, and rebuilding required is now sure to take three or four years at least. Given that Zagreb is situated in a region of high seismic risk, additional work will be needed to protect even the undamaged buildings from similar events in the future. Most buildings in the city center were built between 1870 and 1910, which means that nearly all of them will need to be reinforced against quakes of higher magnitude, like the one that struck Zagreb in 1880. The only way to achieve such an objective within foreseeable future is to obtain funding from the European Union. After all, the city center is an architectural and urbanistic relic of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As such, it is well worth protecting by the Union. If only the Croatian government had the hutzpah to put the city’s origins to the fore.