by I was woken at 4:40 this morning by the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck off East Cape. I felt a rolling motion that lasted a good 20 to 25 seconds. I didn’t get a lot of sleep after that. My carpool mate didn’t feel a thing and didn’t even know there had been a thing to feel. Gah!
Talking of things, Father’s Day is actually a thing that some people make a thing of. Who would have thought? There was me thinking it was just commercialised crap. If I gave my dad a Father’s Day present he’d think I was taking the piss. And he’d be right.
Brexit is back on the agenda after the parliamentary summer recess. I think the process was (and is still being) appallingly handled. The issue of Britain’s EU membership was too complex to be put to a referendum in the first place, both sides lied (though the Leave side did so more blatantly), and I can’t believe they never had a plan or timetable for leaving the EU.
This morning’s earthquake was the same magnitude as the one that hit Canterbury almost six years ago to the day, and at almost the same time. It generated a mini-tsunami, and came hot on the heels of Wednesday’s pretend “exercise” tsunami. Eastern Romania experiences earthquakes fairly regularly. Thirty years ago on Wednesday 150 lives were lost in a 7.1 quake, and in 1977 almost 1600 were killed in a 7.2 quake, mostly in Bucharest. Here is some earthquake vocabulary that I hope I won’t need:
Earthquake: cutremur
To shake: a zgudui
Shock wave: undă de șoc
Aftershock: replică
Fault line: linie de falie
Depth: adâncime
Damage (noun): pagubă
Destruction: distrugere
Struck: lovit
Earth or land: pământ
Crack (noun): crăpătură
Collapsed: prăbușit
