Thousands of residents run away from the Greek island of Santorini in the middle of the wave of seismic activity.
Several 6,000 people have left the island by ferry from Sunday, according to local media, with emergency flights that should have gone on Tuesday.
More than 300 earthquakes have been recorded in the last 48 hours near the island – and some experts say they shiver can continue for weeks. Authorities are closed schools for the whole week and warned against large closed gatherings, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mittotakis called for calmness.
Santorini is a popular tourist destination known for its white buildings, but most outgoing departure are locals, because February is outside the top tourist season.
Several shivers, measuring up to size 4.7, was recorded northeast of Santorini early on Tuesday.
Although great damage has not been reported so far, in urgent measures are taken as a precaution.
Hundreds of people in piro are in the port in the early hours on Tuesday morning to board the ferry leaving on land.
“Everything is closed. Nobody’s working now. The entire island emphasized:” The 18-year-old local stay said Reuters News Agency before boarding the vessel.
In addition to 6,000 people who have left the island by ferry from Sunday, about 2,500 to 2,700 passengers take off from Santorini to Athens on Monday and Tuesday, according to the Aegean airlines.
The carrier said that the three emergency flies added until its schedule after the Climate Crisis Department and civil protection.
Santorini is a small island with a population from only 15,500. Every year greets millions of tourists.
Kostas Sakavaras, a travel guide that lived on Santorini for 18 years, left an island with his wife and children on Monday.
“We considered that the better choice is to come to the mainland as a precaution,” he said for the BBC News.
“Nothing fell, nor nothing like that,” he said, adding that the worst part was sound. “It’s the scariest part of that,” Mr. Sakavaras said, who planned to return home after school opening.
Schools are planned to stay closed on the island to Friday. Authorities also warned people to avoid certain areas of the island and empty their pools.
Mayor Santorini, Nikos Zorzos, said the island was prepared for seismic activity that “can last many weeks”. The island must approach the situation “with patience and calm down,” he said on Tuesday.
He added that the plans were established to build shelters and provided food for the population if greater shivers appear.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis told Greece on Monday to work on the management of “very intense geological phenomenon”.
Seismologists believe that recent tremors are to be smaller, but preventive measures have been established in case a larger earthquake occur.
Emergencies warned the residents to leave the ammoudia areas, Armenia and the old port of Fira due to landslides.
The Southern Regional Fire Department has been placed on general warnings and rescue teams were dispatched, and crew standing the high-yellow medical tents on the island.
Earthquakes originally from the area around the small island of Anydros, northeast of Santorini.
Santorini is on what is known as the Hellese Volcanian onions – the chain of the islands created by Volcano – but the last main eruption was in the 1950s.
Greek authorities said that recent tremors were associated with the movements of the tectonic plate instead of volcanic activity.
Scientists currently unable to predict the correct time schedule, size or location of the earthquake.
But there are areas of the world in which more likely to appear what helps governments prepare.
Earthquakes occur as a result of tectonic slabs moving or past, below another or separate. This results in stress that is built, and then released as earthquakes with or near the boundaries of these plates – known as errors. Santorini and Greek islands are near such a line.
As scientists cannot predict such events the best way to prevent damage or loss of life to reduce the vulnerability of their population. This can be through designing and building a building resistant to earthquake or evacuation of residents when the earthquakes begin.
2025-02-04 12:59:00
