Santorini in state of emergency after thousands of earthquakes shake Greek island for days, sending majority of residents fleeing
A state of emergency was declared on Santorini last week after a magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook the Greek island late Wednesday. The tremor is the latest — and strongest — of several thousand earthquakes that have struck the island since last week, prompting more than 13,000 out of the island's 15,000 residents to evacuate and rescue teams to deploy.
The island is under a state of emergency until March 3 to "address the emergency needs and manage the consequences," BBC News reported.
No major damage was immediately reported on the island, which is one of Greece's most popular tourist destinations, with millions of foreign visitors every year. Since last week, the thousands of residents who have left traveled by plane and ferry as tremors continued to shake the region.
While no formal emergency evacuation order has been issued, many residents have already evacuated. A coast guard vessel and military landing craft have arrived in the area in case an emergency evacuation is called, Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said at an emergency meeting in Athens on Wednesday. Kikilias told Santorini residents to remain calm and follow any official instructions.
'All elements of seismic activity are being examined. The measures that have been taken so far are preventive,' Kikilias said after the meeting, according to a Google-translated X post. 'I very much ask, as always, our fellow citizens to listen to the measures of the experts and comply with them so that we can deal with the current situation.'
Rémy Bossu, the secretary-general of the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center, which analyzes earthquakes in the region, explained to CNN the recent tremors — known as an "earthquake swarm" — are "very unusual," even for Santorini, which often experiences seismic activity.
Normally, in situations like this in Santorini, 'What you observe is a large earthquake followed by aftershocks which decrease with time in magnitude and frequency," Bossu said. But in this case, "We see that the magnitude has been increasing with time and the rate has been increasing, so this is not typical behavior," he added.
Greece's Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization has estimated that this activity may continue for many more days if not weeks, CNN noted.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also visited the island Friday morning to check on the emergency preparation setup and urged the public to remain calm during this time.
"We hope this phenomenon ends quickly and the island fully returns to its normal pace," Mitsotakis said.
Thousands of earthquakes, ranging from magnitude 3 to magnitude 5.2, have hit Santorini. The U.S. Geological Survey defines a 5-magnitude earthquake as 'moderate,' which means it is strong enough to be felt by most people and could potentially cause some damage to already weak structures.
While experts cannot predict future earthquakes, Efthymis Lekkas, the head of the Hellenic Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, told a Greece broadcaster that a larger earthquake isn't ruled out.
While authorities have closed schools and shut down access to certain areas, no major damage has been reported on the island so far.
No scientists have ever accurately predicted an earthquake before it struck, and experts have not determined whether this activity suggests that a significantly large earthquake could hit Santorini or not.
Santorini, which is one of Greece's most popular tourist destinations, sits on top of an active volcano, although it has not erupted since 1950. Scientists don't expect the earthquakes to trigger a volcano eruption.
"In our country, we have not seen anything similar with so many earthquakes of this magnitude,' Vasilis Karastathis, the director of the Geodynamic Institute of Athens, told the BBC. 'On the contrary, we see an increase in frequency and magnitude.'
In response to the uncertainty, thousands have left the island already.
"For three days now, there have been earthquakes all the time, every five minutes. It is continuous, they don't stop at all, the entire island is traumatized," Tzanis Lignos, 35, told Reuters earlier this week. Lignos left the island with his wife and son. "No one could sleep last night, not my wife. There was a lot of noise. We went running outside, that is why we cannot stay here any longer."
Rescue crews have been deployed to Santorini since Sunday. Authorities have banned public events and access to certain coastal and clifftop areas, and have asked schools to shut down for the week.
According to officials, more than 11,000 people have left Santorini since Friday, BBC News reported, with around 7,000 leaving via ferry and 4,000 by plane.
Ferries and airlines have added more ships and flights to their schedules this week to accommodate the increased demand. However, ferry services were temporarily shut down on Wednesday because of rough weather.
Santorini, which sits on top of an active volcano, lies along what's known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc — a chain of islands created by volcanoes that stretches from Greece to Turkey.
Lekkas told reporters that the epicenter of the earthquakes in the Aegean Sea was moving northward away from Santorini. While these earthquakes 'may last several days or several weeks' there is no connection to the area's volcanoes, Lekkas added.
While experts do not believe Santorini's current earthquake activity will cause a volcanic eruption, the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry noted on Jan. 30 that it was monitoring sensors that had picked up 'mild, seismic-volcanic activity' near Santorini. Similar volcanic activity had been recorded in the area in 2011 and did not cause any issues despite lasting for 14 months. The group added that, 'according to scientists, based on the currently available data there is no cause for particular concern.'
While the Santorini volcano has not erupted since 1950, it was the site of one of the largest volcano eruptions in history in 1620 B.C., which destroyed part of the island, caused a tsunami and gave Santorini its current crescent-like shape.
'What we must realize is that the Santorini volcano produces very large explosions every 20,000 years,' Lekkas said on Greece's ERT television channel on Jan. 30. '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."
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