The state of emergency was declared in Santorini after the strongest earthquake was recorded on days of almost constant tremors, which almost emptied from visitors and residents the famous Greek tourist paradise.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.2 shook Santorini this Wednesday night, the first to exceed 5.0 since the start of tremors last week.
This Thursday, the Greek Civil Protection Ministry placed the island in a state of emergency until March 3 to respond to seismic activity.
About 11,000 people are thought to have fled the island, which attracts more than 3.4 million tourists a year and houses about 20,000 permanent residents.
Greek authorities organized additional flights to help people escape to the safety of the continent, but evacuation efforts were complicated on Wednesday, with the ferries not being able to get out of ports due to the strong winds. The normal service resumed this Thursday.
Situated near the border between the huge African and euro-Asian tectonic plates, Santorini is often the scene of seismic activity, but rarely so intensely and for so long. In addition to Santorini, the neighboring islands of amorgos and iOS were also shaken.
There have been no major damages, but the Greek authorities are taking precautions before a large -scale potentially earthquake.
“The whole state mechanism has been activated and I want to appeal to our citizens to cooperate with the authorities,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after a meeting of high employees on Wednesday.
Santorini owes its form to geological phenomena of millennia. The island is famous for its boiler – a cup -shaped crater caused by a volcanic eruption – which was formed by one of the largest explosions known in about 1600 BC
Hundreds of tremors, which hit Santorini every few minutes for days, had a magnitude of about 3.0 and are considered “light” earthquakes. With a magnitude of more than 5.0, Wednesday’s earthquake is considered “moderate”. At least five magnitude of 4.0 or more, which are considered “slight” was followed.
The last large earthquake in Santorini – with a magnitude of 7.5 – occurred in 1956, and killed at least 53 people and injured more than 100.
