Tourists scramble to leave Santorini amid quake fears

Santorini: Tourists and residents are scrambling to leave the popular Greek island of Santorini after a series of earthquakes prompted authorities to dispatch emergency rescue crews and close schools amid fears a bigger quake could follow.

More than 200 tremors of up to magnitude 4.9 hit Santorini and several nearby islands over the weekend and into Monday. Fearful families spent Sunday night sleeping in cars, one emergency worker said, while hundreds of people lined up at Santorini’s main port on Monday afternoon to catch a ferry off the island.

Aegean Airlines has scheduled extra flights to help people leave.

Passengers eager to flee Santorini board a ferry to Athens after a series of earthquakes.Credit: AP

“I have never felt anything like this and with such frequency – an earthquake every 10 or 20 minutes,” said Santorini Philharmonic Orchestra director Michalis Gerontakis. “Everyone is anxious, even if some of us hide it not to cause panic, but everyone is worried.”

Mobile phones on Santorini blared with alert warnings about the potential for rock slides after the quakes, with several causing loud rumbles.

Authorities have banned access to seaside areas close to cliffs, including the island’s old port, and schools have been closed on four islands until Friday. Residents and visitors have been told to avoid large indoor gatherings and hotels asked to drain swimming pools to reduce potential damage. Search and rescue teams have been sent in, and tents set up to house people if needed.

“I want to ask our islanders first and foremost to remain calm, to listen to the instructions of the Civil Protection [Authority],” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said from Brussels, where he was attending a European leaders meeting.

Santorini draws more than 3 million visitors a year.Credit: Getty Images

Officials met with scientists at the weekend and on Monday to assess the situation. Greek experts say the quakes are not linked to Santorini’s volcano, which last had a notable eruption in 1950, but acknowledge that the pattern of seismic activity is a concern.

Seismologist Gerasimos Papadopoulos cautioned that the earthquake sequence – displayed on live seismic maps as a growing cluster of dots between the islands of Santorini, Ios, Amorgos and Anafi – could indicate a larger impending event.

“All scenarios remain open,” Papadopoulos wrote online. “The number of tremors has increased, magnitudes have risen and epicentres have shifted north-east. While these are tectonic quakes, not volcanic, the risk level has escalated.”

Santorini draws more than 3 million visitors a year to its whitewashed villages, built along dramatic cliffs formed by a massive volcanic eruption 3500 years ago considered to have been one of the largest in human history.

The fault line activated with the most recent tremors was the site of Greece’s largest quake in the 20th century: a 7.7-magnitude event that struck in 1956, triggering a roughly 20-metre tsunami, causing significant damage in Amorgos and Santorini and killing more than 50 people.

“We’ve had earthquakes before but never anything like this. This feels different,” said Moroccan tour guide Nadia Benomar, who has lived on the island for 19 years. She bought a ferry ticket on Monday for the nearby island of Naxos.

“I need to get away for a few days until things calm down.”

Tzanis Lignos, 35, said he had secured tickets off the island for himself, his wife and his son.

People wait for the ferry to arrive at Santorini on Monday.Credit: AP

“For three days now, there have been earthquakes all the time, every five minutes. It is continuous. They don’t stop at all. The entire island is traumatised. No one could sleep last night, not my wife. There was a lot of noise. We went running outside, that is why we cannot stay here any longer.”

But local officials said permanent residents weren’t especially worried because they were used to quakes, and others were also willing to take the risk. Restaurant worker Yiannis Fragiadakis said he had returned to Santorini on Sunday despite the earthquakes.

“I wasn’t afraid. I know that people are really worried and are leaving, and when I got to the port it was really busy, it was like the summer,” Fragiadakis said. “I plan to stay and hopefully the restaurant will start working [for the holiday season] in three weeks.”

Greece sits on multiple fault lines and is often rattled by earthquakes. So far, no significant damage has been reported from the recent spate of quakes.

The volcanic eruption that hit the island about 1600 BC formed Santorini in its current shape and blanketed the island in metres of ash. Experts say mild volcanic activity recorded near Santorini in recent days is not linked to the quakes.

AP, Reuters