7000 people left Santorini in the face of seismic activity

(Keystone-ATS) Some 5,755 passengers have embarked on Sunday on Sunday on board ferries departing from this volcanic island, known worldwide for its blue cupboards hung on the cliffs, according to a count provided to AFP by a Greek coast guard.

The main Greek airline Aegean Airlines said it had sent 1294 passengers Monday from Santorini to Athens, ensuring a total of nine flights, including five exceptional.

Seismic activity near the crescent island is an unprecedented sequence in this area since the start of the statements in 1964, according to data from the Geodynamic Institute of the Athens Observatory analyzed by AFP.

More than 180 earthquakes have been recorded daily since Sunday, more than half of which exceed a magnitude of 3.

In an area of ​​around 1000 km2 around the island, between January 24 and February 4 at midday, 750 earthquakes were identified.

For the professor of seismology Kostas papazachos, these repeated earthquakes constitute an “unprecedented phenomenon for data from the Greek region”.

“We do not have a main earthquake, we have a sequence of many earthquakes,” he observed on the private television channel Ant1.

“We have never known this before,” added Athanassios Ganas, research director at the Athens Observatory, calculating: “We now have more than 41 earthquakes greater than 4 in a period of 72 hours” .

Santorini has around 15,500 permanent residents and many seasonal workers in the hotel, catering or construction.

On Tuesday day, Aegean Airlines plans eight flights of »a total capacity of more than 1,400 seats”.

In a statement, the company said it could have transported in total between Monday and Tuesday 2,500 to 2,700 people.

Files were formed calm in front of travel agencies and before the departure of the ferries but no panic movement, AFP journalists have noted on the spot.

Many passengers embarked in the middle of the afternoon on a ferry to Piraeus, the large port south of Athens.

Reduced tourism

Tourist activity is reduced in this season in Santorini which receives more than 3 million visitors each year.

However, some tourists encountered in Fira, one of the main villages on the island, did not seem disturbed beyond measure despite the minimal tremors, which are felt at regular intervals.

“In Japan, as you know, every day we face earthquakes,” relativized Walter Saito, 43 years old, “not particularly worried”.

At the airport, the American Roger Beauchamp, originally from Arizona, also felt all day “small light jerks”. “We come from a place where (…) There have been great earthquakes in the past,” he adds.

Tuesday around 02:45 am local, a new earthquake of magnitude 4.9 was recorded in the Aegean Sea, some 31 km from Santorini, according to the Geodynamic Institute of the Athens Observatory.

Around 2:00 p.m., a new shock of 4.8 speaking less than 30 minutes after a previous one of 4.6 was recorded in the same area, southwest of Amorgos, another tourist island of the Cyclades archipelago, where live less than 2,000 permanent inhabitants.

Other lower intensity earthquakes are constantly listed and Greek scientists warn that this seismic activity, which has intensified since Saturday, could last for weeks.

“Safety”

“The scenario of earthquakes of magnitude 6 and more is unlikely,” insisted the president of the Organization for Antisism Planning and Protection (OASP), EFThymios Lekkas on the private television channel Mega.

“The inhabitants of Santorini must feel safe. We must not give in to panic, “he added, after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for calm residents.

According to him, “an earthquake of around 5.5 would have no consequences on the island”.

Current tremors are not the result of volcanic activity but of tectonic activity, have also hammered the authorities who ordered the precautionary closure of all the schools of Santorini, Amorgos and the neighboring islands until on Friday.

Santorini’s spectacular landscape was created by a volcanic eruption around 1600 years before our era which caused the formation of a caldera.