Greece’s ‘Instagram island’ of Santorini rattled by 200 earthquakes

Greece’s ‘Instagram island’ of Santorini rattled by 200 earthquakes

As hundreds of pounding earthquakes have rattled Santorini island and its neighbors in the Aegean Sea, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has appealed for calm.

As of 7am on Tuesday (05:00 GMT), the quakes continued to occur a few minutes apart, according to records from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), with the largest quake being 5.11 magnitude on Monday afternoon.

In a statement from Brussels, Mitsotakis urged “our islanders first and foremost to remain calm” while claiming that authorities have been monitoring a “very intense” geological phenomenon for some time.

In order to prevent more earthquakes from causing little harm and no injuries, thousands of locals and tourists have packed onto ferries and flights from Santorini and the nearby islands of Anafi, Ios, and Amorgos.

A dormant volcano is located on the picturesque crescent-shaped island of Santorini, but an expert committee established to monitor the situation estimated 200 quakes of magnitude 3 or more had been recorded, but emphasized that the phenomenon was “not linked to volcanic activity.”

The current earthquake sequence, which is visible on live seismic maps as a growing cluster of dots between Santorini, Ios, Amorgos, and Anafi, could point to a larger impending event, warned renowned Greek seismologist Gerasimos Papadopoulos.

“All scenarios remain open”, Papadopoulos wrote in an online post.

“The number of tremors has increased, magnitudes have risen, and epicentres have shifted northeast. While these are tectonic quakes, not volcanic, the risk level has escalated”, he said.

Santorini’s whitewashed villages, which are thought to be among the largest in human history, are visited by more than three million people each year.

A large area of the island was covered in meters of ash by the eruption, which is thought to have contributed to the demise of the region’s ancient Minoan civilization.

The most recent notable eruption took place in 1950, Santorini, despite the volcano still active.

The Santorini volcano explodes very loudly every 20 000 years, according to Efthymios Lekkas, the head of the Hellenic Volcanic Arc’s scientific monitoring committee, last week.

“It’s been 3, 000 years since the last explosion, so we have a very long time ahead of us before we face a big explosion”.

Ferries and planes full

Around 2, 000 people left Santorini by sea on Sunday and Monday, according to the AFP news agency, with ferry operators and airlines claiming to be adding services to increase their departures in response to a request from the island’s Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection.

Although it is still far beyond its peak season due to the island’s cooler winter weather, Instagram fame has recently increased tourism there.

Passengers board a regularly scheduled ferry to Athens’s port of Piraeus, from Santorini, southern Greece on February 3, 2025]Petros Giannakouris/AP Photo]

Tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras, who has lived on the island for 17 years, claimed he had never before experienced this level of seismic activity.

“It was shaking every three to four hours yesterday. This feels different from the other times”, he said.

Sakavaras said he left the island on Sunday with his wife and two children, on a ferry full of passengers. “We plan to stay]on the mainland] until the end of the week. He said, “I hope it will calm down tomorrow and that it will escalate.”

While schools on all four islands are closed, emergency personnel have assisted in setting up tents next to the island’s main hospital as a staging area.

Mobile phones have also been subject to push-alerts that warn against entering some coastal areas and to stay away from areas where rockslides might occur.

Source: Aljazeera

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