Santorini empties. Much of the population of the Greek Island does not want to wait for the official evacuation order and has decided to leave before, before. In the last three days there have been more than 550 tremors of magnitude greater than 3 in the triangle that form amorgos, íos and Santorini, the three most affected islands. In the early hours of this Tuesday, one of the tremors reached the magnitude 4.9, the strongest since this seismic episode began. He has not been the only one who has trembled windows and lamps, where the shakes of the minor fits are most noticed. Between 3.19 and 5.03 this morning there have been three earthquakes of magnitude 4.9, 4.2 and 4 about 20 kilometers south-southwest of Amorgós, according to the Geodynamic Institute of the National Observatory of Athens. At 8.09 another magnitude 4.8 has occurred.
The president of the Association of Shipping Companies of Passengers, Dionysis Theodoratos has told Greek public television that 6,000 people left Santorini in Ferry since Sunday. For its part, the main Greek airline, Aegean, said that more than 2,500 people have left by plane and for this Tuesday it has scheduled eight flights, four more than usual, in which another 1,400 people will travel to Athens from the island. , especially in summer.
Due to the frequency and intensity of the tremors, many neighbors have spent the night in their cars and other places protected outside the buildings. The concern of the inhabitants increased during Sunday and Monday when they observed that hundreds of rocks were detached from the steep slopes, fortunately without causing victims or damage of consideration. Most of the nuclei inhabited in Santorini are in the upper part of the island. However, the population of Amorgós is concentrated in Katápola, the main port of the island. There what worries are not so much detachments but the possibility of a tsunami that the authorities have alerted if the great earthquake is feared.
Local authorities have enabled schools and sports center with tents to accommodate neighbors to a possible evacuation of their homes. The schools are closed until Friday and teams from the Special Disaster Response Unit (Emak), firefighters specialized in search and rescue of earthquake victims. In addition, the central government has ordered the emptying of the pools, since a large mass of water can cause damage to nearby buildings in case of earthquake.
The Government of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has not spared expenses to ensure that there is no victim in case the worst forecasts are fulfilled. The management of natural disasters and accidents has become a political priority because, in the last decade, Greece has lived in its recent history, in 2018, and, in 2023, since there are records, the second World War and with more victims. Because of this rail tragedy, where 57 people died in February 2023, hundreds of thousands of citizens took to the streets to denounce the negligence of the government.
Despite all those catastrophes and accidents ,. Its executive has great popularity thanks to its efficient economic management and the enormous weakness of the opposition, plunged for years in intestine struggles. The Greek prime minister does not want to risk now that an earthquake takes his government ahead.
