Greece earthquakes: Aftershocks hit Santorini and surrounding islands
Santorini has been hit by a strong, shallow 5.3 magnitude earthquake, which is the strongest to strike the Greek island throughout latest seismic exercise within the space.
The tremors have been felt in Athens on Monday night and measured a focal depth of 17km (10.6 miles).
Residents of the neighbouring island Amorgos stay on excessive alert after the most recent tremor, which adopted a reasonable 5.0 magnitude earthquake between the islands on Sunday night.
The vacationer hotspot has been rocked by seismic exercise since January and greater than 12,800 quakes have been detected by the College of Athens’ Seismological Laboratory.
Some residents have been seen patrolling harmful areas to discourage vacationers from taking photographs on cliffs.
Landslides have occurred in lots of components of Santorini as a result of frequency and depth of the tremors and specialists haven’t dominated out a serious earthquake.
Seismologists have been optimistic in regards to the depth of the quakes beginning to subside, however are actually involved they’re worsening.
A state of emergency will stay in place on Santorini till at the least 3 March.
Sunday’s quake was preceded by three smaller ones of greater than 4.0 magnitude, whereas the three on Monday morning have been additionally greater than 4.0.
Inspections discovered no injury to buildings in Santorini or Amorgos.
No accidents have been reported on account of the earthquakes, which have numbered within the hundreds since 26 January, however greater than 11,000 folks have left the islands.
Faculties will stay closed on Santorini, Amorgos and several other different islands on Monday and Tuesday.
A crew of the Particular Catastrophe Response Unit has set off for Amorgos from Patras with a particular earthquake rescue car, and technical groups are anticipated to examine the electrical energy community on the island.
Kostas Papazachos, a professor of seismology on the Aristotle College of Thessaloniki, informed Greek broadcaster ERT that the authorities needed to permit for the scenario to proceed for many or all of February.
“Let’s hope that we are going to slowly transfer in the direction of a gradual de-escalation,” he stated.
“We should be a bit affected person and see. Let’s hope that after a few weeks the phenomenon will begin to subside.”
He stated the potential of a serious earthquake had not been fully dominated out.
In the meantime the cruise ship Viking Star, with 893 passengers and 470 crew, docked on the port of Souda in Crete early on Monday morning.
It was resulting from be the primary cruise ship of the season in Santorini. The ship modified its route primarily to keep away from cable automotive overcrowding in Santorini throughout the seismic exercise.
The strongest quake up to now was a 5.2 magnitude on Thursday. Six and above is taken into account extreme.
Greece is one among Europe’s most earthquake-prone international locations, however scientists are puzzled by the present “clusters” of quakes which haven’t been linked to a serious shock.
Santorini is on what is named the Hellenic Volcanic Arc, which is a sequence of islands created by volcanoes, however the final main eruption was within the Fifties.
Greek authorities have stated the latest tremors have been associated to tectonic plate actions, not volcanic exercise.
Scientists can’t predict the precise timing, dimension or location of earthquakes.
From 26 January to eight February 2025, the Seismology Laboratory (SL) of the College of Athens registered greater than 12,800 earthquakes within the Santorini-Amorgos zone.
Extra reporting by Ruth Comerford.
