Santorini earthquakes decreasing but outlook uncertain: top Greek scientist
ATHENS, Greece, Feb 18, (AP): The Greek government's chief seismologist says the frequency of earthquakes affecting Santorini and nearby islands has eased in recent days, but that the outlook for continued tremors in the coming weeks remains uncertain. "Unfortunately, for now, we must wait. These seismic sequences do not end quickly.
They follow their own timeline,' seismologist Costas Papazachos told state-run ERT radio on Monday. "Hopefully, this particular sequence will surprise us in a positive way and resolve itself sooner rather than later,' he said. A state of emergency has been declared on Santorini and the nearby islands of Ios, Amorgos, and Anafi after a swarm of undersea earthquakes this month - sometimes felt every few minutes - prompted thousands of residents and workers to move to the Greek mainland.
Schools on the islands remain closed for a third week, while security services have set up rescue teams and backup power generators as part of precautionary measures. The government announced Monday that an emergency port facility was being established on Santorini in case of a wide-scale evacuation.
Papazachos, a professor of geophysics at the University of Thessaloniki, currently serves as the representative of two emergency committees that include scientists and officials from government, the military, and emergency services. He said Santorini, a volcanic island shaped by catastrophic eruptions, did not face danger from its dormant volcano, but noted that magma was affecting the tremors.
"The root cause of the activity is the interaction of tectonic and magmatic processes,' he said. "That does not mean that the molten material - the magma - will manage to break through 8 kilometers (5 miles) of crust and reach the surface, causing a new volcanic eruption.' Scientists were developing a clearer picture after gathering data from multiple sensors, he said.
"We are monitoring not only seismographs but also numerous other systems that track ground deformation, gas emissions, and satellite data,' he said. "At this moment, I can honestly say we do not have a definitive forecast, as it is too early to assess the current slight de-escalation of seismic activity. We have encountered many surprises.' Earthquakes of up to magnitude 5.1 were recorded Monday in the undersea area bordered by the four islands under a state of emergency.
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Arab Times
6 days ago
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Arab Times
31-05-2025
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Climate change caused half the world to endure an extra month of extreme heat: experts
NEW YORK, May 31, (AP): Scientists say 4 billion people, about half the world's population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat because of human-caused climate change from May 2024 to May 2025. The extreme heat caused illness, death, crop losses, and strained energy and health care systems, according to the analysis from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central, and the Red Cross. "Although floods and cyclones often dominate headlines, heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event,' the report said. Many heat-related deaths are unreported or are mislabeled by other conditions like heart disease or kidney failure. The scientists used peer-reviewed methods to study how much climate change boosted temperatures in an extreme heat event and calculated how much more likely its occurrence was because of climate change. In almost all countries in the world, the number of extreme heat days has at least doubled compared with a world without climate change. Caribbean islands were among the hardest hit by additional extreme heat days. Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, endured 161 days of extreme heat. Without climate change, only 48 would have occurred. "It makes it feel impossible to be outside,' said Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director for Puerto Rico at Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit focused on social and environmental issues in Latino communities, who lives in the San Juan area and was not involved in the report. "Even something as simple as trying to have a day outdoors with family, we weren't able to do it because the heat was too high," she said, reporting feeling dizzy and sick last summer. When the power goes out, which happens frequently in Puerto Rico in part because of decades of neglected grid maintenance and damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Navarro said it is difficult to sleep. "If you are someone relatively healthy, that is uncomfortable, it's hard to sleep ... but if you are someone who has a health condition, now your life is at risk,' Gossett Navarro said. Heat waves are silent killers, said Friederike Otto, associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London, one of the report's authors. "People don't fall dead on the street in a heat wave ... people either die in hospitals or in poorly insulated homes and therefore are just not seen,' he said. Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, such as older adults and people with medical conditions, suffer the most from extreme heat. The high temperatures recorded in the extreme heat events that occurred in Central Asia in March, South Sudan in February, and in the Mediterranean last July would have not been possible without climate change, according to the report. At least 21 people died in Morocco after temperatures hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) last July. People are noticing temperatures are getting hotter, but don't always know it is being driven by climate change, said Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, in a World Weather Attribution statement. "We need to quickly scale our responses to heat through better early warning systems, heat action plans, and long-term planning for heat in urban areas to meet the rising challenge,' Singh said. City-led initiatives to tackle extreme heat are becoming popular in parts of South Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia to coordinate resources across governments and other agencies. One example is a tree-planting initiative launched in Marseille, France, to create more shaded areas. The report says strategies to prepare for heat waves include monitoring and reporting systems for extreme temperatures, providing emergency health services, cooling shelters, updated building codes, enforcing heat safety rules at work, and designing cities to be more heat-resilient. But without phasing out fossil fuels, heat waves will continue becoming more severe and frequent, and protective measures against the heat will lose their effectiveness, the scientists said.
