Greece has suffered many times from big earthquakes that caused human victims as well as big damage to public and private infrastructure. However, the 1978 earthquake in Thessaloniki (Mw = 6.5) motivated the beginning of a more systematic confrontation of the impact of such phenomena. This happened because it was the first time that a powerful earthquake affected a big modern city of roughly one million of residents. Thessaloniki presented the formal characteristics of Greek urban built environment: buildings with 4 to 8 storeys, large population in numbers and density, mixed land use, traffic problems and lack of effective planning of management of natural catastrophes. After the Thessaloniki earthquake, a situation of chaos was created due to the panic, the destructions, the lack of information and the innumerable calls on help, but also on control of static condition and damage of buildings. By that time, there was no specific procedure for the inspection of buildings and infrastructure. However, after the first period of embarrassment, the state agencies reacted. Inspection forms were designed, printed and distributed during the first days after the earthquake. The buildings were inspected by two-member teams of civil engineers in order to be classified in categories with regard to their damage and usability. These paper inspection forms constitute a valuable database concerning the impact of the earthquake to the buildings of Thessaloniki.