What's Happening In Cyprus......

Limassol Children's Festival

THE THIRD annual Limassol International Children’s Festival will take place on September 27 at the Limassol Municipal Garden. The festival, aiming to promote a culture of tolerance and understanding among Limassol’s youth will see approximately 500 children of various nationalities and backgrounds take to the stage.

More than 500 kids make different show and concerts. A new concert starts every 15 min. There are exhibitions and concerts of schools, studios, clubs. The event takes place in the biggest park of Limassol – and all the Municipal Garden is full with kids and their parents (more than 3000 people).


Registration fee for schools – 85 euros. All activities, concerts, shows are free to any children.
 

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Missing Moon Rock

 
BETWEEN 1973 and 1974, America presented 135 nations of the world with pea-sized fragments of rock gathered from the moon on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. The rocks were presented to the heads of state of 135 countries by President Nixon and later President Ford.


During the first moon landing in 1969 and the five subsequent missions, 382kg of lunar rock was collected and immediately designated the property of the United States. The majority of it is now safely ensconced in NASA’s vaults.


A quarter of a kilogram, hewn from Mother Rock 70017 in 1972, was split into 1.1g pieces, each encased in a transparent Lucite ball. These fragments were sent to 135 nations for diplomatic purposes.


However, a number of these rocks are now missing, and a very small number of nations, including Cyprus, had never heard of them at all.
 
Joseph Gutheinz, retired NASA Special Agent and now a college professor, has made a project of hunting down the missing lunar treasure.


In 1998 he went undercover in a fascinating sting operation entitled Operation Lunar Eclipse, which eventually tracked down the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock, stolen from a museum and smuggled into America.
 
Malta’s Apollo 17 rock was stolen in 2004 in an incredible piece of amateur theft. According to Gutheinz the thief simply walked into the museum, picked up the rock and pocketed it.
 
Romania’s Apollo 17 rock disappeared after the fall and execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989.
 
The Netherlands, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are among the few countries where the location the gift rocks is known. Britain’s is on display at the Natural History Museum. One of the Dutch ones, kept in the Rijksmuseum, was recently discovered to be a piece of petrified wood, possibly from Arizona. The other Dutch rocks, all genuine, are still safely in a natural history museum.


In 2004, Gutheinz told The Times, “I’ve located about two dozen worldwide; the rest are unaccounted for. That doesn’t mean that they are gone, but my hunch is that around half are lost, stolen or in a position where they could easily be stolen. They are worth whatever a collector is prepared to pay for them.
 

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Limassol Quake

 

AN EARTHQUAKE shook the island again on Wednesday 15 September, rattling buildings and even sending office workers out on the streets of Nicosia, a witness said.

According to the Geological Survey Department’s, the earthquake occurred at around 5.09pm (local time), located 10km south of Amathunta at sea.



But citing the French-based European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, Reuters reported the epicentre only being only two km deep and measuring 4.6 on the Richter Scale. (When the page link opens - click the Map tab for more detailed images for the location. You can zoom into the map at the bottom of the page).




Seismic waves were felt most intensely in high-rise buildings in Limassol, but also in surrounding villages, in Larnaca, Kiti, and even Nicosia. (Yes, I was on the 3rd floor of my office and we most definitely shook, for the 2nd time inside 4 weeks).



The area is known for having similar-strength earthquakes with the last one recorded on August 25, 2009, measuring 4.5 on the Richter Scale.
 
Cyprus lies in second most earthquake stricken zone on earth. Luckily for Cyprus it is located in a less active sector of this zone, and it experiences earthquakes less frequently and of a lower magnitude than that of Greece and Turkey. However, that does not mean that earthquakes are an isolated event. Throughout the year there are many recorded events (tremors) that while might go unnoticed by the population are still recorded by the sensors on the island. The most notable seismic threat for Cyprus probably comes from what is known as the Cyprian Arc.


The Cyprian Arc is described as being one of the least understood parts of the Alpine Himalayan tectonic belt. This could actually be referred to as an inverse arc since it almost looks like a soup bowl that holds Cyprus. It is one of the least understood geological features since even the location of the arc has not been accepted yet. While there is a large following that believe that is passes off the coast of Cyprus there has also been some research indicating that it may pass through Cyprus. While it is believed that an evacuation would be impossible due to the closeness of the arc there are seismic sensors in Cyprus that monitor local events.
 
According to the Government about 500 local events and 100 regional earthquakes are recorded each year. In the history of the island there have actually been a few strong earthquakes that have managed to destroy some of the islands cities.