Forty years ago tonight, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Kalamata, Greece, killing 20 people, injuring 80, and leaving...

Forty years ago tonight, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Kalamata, Greece, killing 20 people, injuring 80, and leaving thousands homeless on the streets of a city that would take years to recover. It was a Saturday evening, September 13, 1986, when the quake hit. Dimitra Protonenti, then just 20 years old, was sitting at a seafront café called "Panellinion" when she heard a loud crack followed by an enormous cloud of dust. She recalled sinking to the ground with her hands over her head, convinced the city was being bombed. Within seconds, she couldn't see more than half a meter in front of her face. Four apartment buildings collapsed outright inside the city. Of the 9,124 structures surveyed, 20 percent were deemed to be demolished, 16 percent had major damage, and another 36 percent had lighter but still recorded damage. Only 28 percent were left untouched. The destruction reached well beyond the city limits. The village of Elaiokhori was completely destroyed, and serious damage was recorded across Verga, Poliani, Ari, Artemisia, and Nedousa. Rockfalls on the Taygetos mountain range blocked the Sparta-Kalamata road for roughly 24 hours. Power and communications went down immediately. Thousands spent the night sitting in the streets on chairs as aftershocks rolled through the ground beneath them every few minutes. Kostas Alevras, who was working in the city's technical services department at the time, helped organize the damage assessment operation the next morning, handing engineers three spray cans, green, yellow, and red, to mark which buildings were safe, damaged, or condemned. Two days later, on September 15, a 5.4 magnitude aftershock struck again, adding fresh damage to buildings already weakened. In total, around 700 aftershocks were recorded after the main event. Protonenti and her family lived in tents for six months. That winter, snow fell on Kalamata, a rare occurrence. Schools and kindergartens operated out of temporary structures for months. A large ship was brought into the harbor to house residents who had nowhere else to go. The earthquake eventually led to major reconstruction and a landmark seismic microzonation study of Kalamata t...