Story starts at 5:16
Melville stood in his laboratory, mug of coffee in hand, and looked out at the smooth blue ocean in the distance. Hardly a wave. On a clear morning, like this morning, it was possible, at this height, to see perfectly where the straight line of the sea met the sky - the skyline. The sea was just a little darker than the sky above.
Some people might say Melville had a lonely job. However, he didn't see it that way. And probably, most islanders would have agreed with Melville. Bota Island had a population of just 421 people, so being alone was something that few people suffered from, because they were used to being alone.
After all, Melville had the job he had always wished for. After many years of university, which involved studying geology and seismology in Athens, he had returned to his Greek island home and married his childhood love of his life, Daphne. He no longer wanted to travel and see the world, so he took the job he loved, and lived in an elegant home on the peaceful mountain island of Bota.
It was about a half an hour drive to his place of work in the laboratory, and Melville was the only person who worked there. Although the job was very important, it could be carried out by one person. In this part of the Mediterranean Sea, earthquakes were fairly common. In fact, most were just earth tremors, which are smaller sized earthquakes.
Melville's work involved making seismic maps of the ocean around the island. This work was supposed to help him, and other scientists located in various areas around the Mediterranean, to carry out research, which could better predict when a large earthquake was going to strike. However, with the limited data available due to little government financial support, predicting when a large earthquake would happen was not at all accurate.
Melville walked past the laboratory computer screens watching them carefully. There had been some seismic activity out there deep under the sea for a few days now. He knew this from the scientific instruments situated around the island that could feel tiny vibrations and send back information to the laboratory via satellite. He had written a report about this recent activity, which said that a medium-sized earthquake could happen very soon.
The mobile phone rang - Melville's wife, Daphne.
'Hi, honey!' he answered. 'What are you up to?'
Daphne ran their little hotel further down the mountain in the village of Bota. A village of white sugar-cube houses, which hung over the sea about a hundred metres up. But it was winter now and there were hardly any tourists to be seen. Daphne also ran her own private taxi service, which she offered to visitors - taking them backwards and forwards between the beach and the village, which were both on opposite sides of the island.
'Guess what? We've got four new guests staying!' she said happily. 'A French couple and their two children. They arrived on this morning's ferry. I've taken them to Palomini beach. I said it was a bit cold for a swim but they were keen to go. They took a picnic. I'm going to pick them up at six.'
This was one reason why Bota had never really been very popular with tourists. As the beach was on the far side of the island from the village, the only way to get there was on foot, which was a long walk, or by Daphne's taxi. There was no bus service. With a population of four hundred and fifty people, who rarely went to the beach, it wasn't worth it.
'Great,' Melville replied. 'Hey, Daphne. You know I'm staying here for lunch, don't you? I need to watch these trends in seismic activity. They're a little unusual, so I intend to let the other stations know about them. I've brought a couple of sandwiches and a beer. I'll see you this evening.'
'Sure. That's fine, Mel!' said Daphne. 'Although, it's a shame you have to work on a Sunday.'
'Sorry about that,' Melville apologised. 'But I think I should be here due to all this seismic stuff going on.'
'I understand, honey,' said Daphne and hung up.
One reason Melville loved working in this mountain-top laboratory, was that the light was so spectacular. The laboratory had large windows, from where you could see the mountain landscape and the sea. It was easy for Melville to stop concentrating, and look away from his screens to the brilliant winter sunshine on the sparkling sea below.
He was doing exactly that now. Wondering whether he should plant some flowers this spring in the soft ground just in front of the laboratory. He could put a table and chairs outside too, where he could enjoy his lunch
A sudden worrying sound from a computer. An alarm! Melville turned his head back to the screens. Powerful seismic activity. What was this? Melville ran to the seismograph. Its pen was drawing mad lines across the paper from one side to the other. An earthquake! And a big one. But where?
He ran back to the screens and began typing into the computer. Data soon came in with the information he needed to do his calculations. Epicentre: Farnac reef. Distance: 100 miles. Melville ran to the shelves and pulled out some maps. He preferred paper maps to get a better picture of the huge areas of the ocean floor.
After a few moments of anxiety, he sat down a little more relaxed. The epicentre was in the middle of the Mediterranean about 300 miles from the North African coast and about the same distance from Crete. If there was one populated area at risk, it would be - Bota!
Melville fed all the information he had available into the computer: depth of the ocean, water temperatures, ocean tides and currents. This data was able to produce a forecast of a possible tsunami as a result of the earthquake. Melville knew that a tsunami could travel at speeds of up to 800 kilometres an hour so a local tsunami like this one could reach the coast in minutes. It all depended.
One interesting fact about tsunamis is that the deeper the water, the faster the wave travels: greater depth, faster tsunami speed. A second interesting and extremely important fact was that the shallower the water the higher the tsunami wave: shallower water, greater height.
Melville moved his eyes over the screen - translating the data into what the effects of this earthquake could be for Bota. Earthquake size: six point three on the Richter scale. Tsunami created? Definitely! Wave height on arrival: 25 metres. Estimated time of arrival: 13 minutes!
Melville made a general announcement via email of all this information to the seismology stations on the coast of the nearby countries: Italy, Malta, Greece, Libya, Tunisia. This he did with just one click of a keyboard button. But they'd be all right. The tsunami would probably not even reach those countries. They were too far away. Ships at sea are usually safe from tsunamis. That is because in very deep water, the wave is fairly small - it only grows in size in water shallower than about sixty metres. Anybody on a cruise liner, for instance, will hardly notice the wave pass underneath. The problem was the population of the enormous rock that Melville, at this moment, was sitting on top of - Bota!
13 minutes! Melville ran to the window. There was the skyline just the same as always. No change yet.
'Daphne!' Melville was now on his mobile phone. 'Tsunami!' he breathed. 'A big one coming in from the southwest.'
'Are you sure!'
'I'm ninety-nine percent sure!'
'How big?'
'About twenty-five metres high on the first wave. The following waves should be smaller.'
'Thank God it's Sunday!'
Melville's mind didn't click at first. Then he realised what she meant.
'Of course! The fishermen don't take their boats out on Sundays! That's good.'
Small boats in shallow water could be seriously damaged by a big tsunami.
'But, the harbour. I need you to check if there's anybody at the harbour. And get everybody up to the village. The village will be safe. It's high up.'
'How much time do we have?'
Melville looked at his watch. 'Eleven minutes. Fortunately, the harbour and village are on opposite sides of the island. The water will rise but they won't take a direct hit.'
'I'm on to it, honey! I'll use the harbour speaker.'
The harbour speaker was a very useful system of communicating with anybody and everybody in the harbour. It had been installed years ago so that anybody in the village could contact the harbour using a loudspeaker. It had been the subject of jokes because angry wives would announce, for everybody in the harbour to hear, that their husband was late for lunch and to come home immediately. Then when the mobile phone arrived, this system of communication was used less often - but it still worked. And, of course, it would always be useful for emergencies such as a tsunami. If Daphne called down to the harbour now. The whole area could be cleared within minutes.
But Daphne didn't hang up. There was a pause. 'Mel!'
'What?'
'The tourists! The French tourists!' she almost screamed these words. 'They're on the beach!'
The beach! The beach was on the south side of the island.
'They'll take a direct hit,' said Melville.
'I won't get there in time,' said Daphne. 'It takes twenty minutes by car.'
'Anyway, you've got to warn the people in the harbour I'll go,' said Melville. 'It'll take me five minutes in my jeep. I'll bring them back up to the laboratory.' Melville realised what going down to that beach actually meant, and he felt fear in his heart.
'Mel!' shouted Daphne down the phone. But she knew there was no other way. How could they leave those people down there to die. Meanwhile, the seconds were ticking by.
'Go, honey, go!' she screamed. But Melville had already hung up. 'And be careful. Please, be careful, Mel' she added to nobody in particular - or perhaps to the cruel gods on Mount Olympus, who had so much power, but preferred to look down and enjoy the fun of watching humans suffer.
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