EPA
“We’ve put all our mattresses in the living room,” says Georgia Nomikou.
The Santorini resident fears the impact of ongoing earthquakes on the Greek island, popular with tourists for its picture-postcard views.
But the idyll has been disrupted this past week by thousands of earthquakes.
Santorini, and other Greek islands in the region, are in the middle of an “unprecedented” seismic swarm or crisis – the name for an abrupt increase in earthquakes in a particular area.
About three-quarters of the island’s 15,000 population have evacuated while authorities declared a state of emergency after a 5.2 magnitude quake, the largest yet, rocked the island on Wednesday.
Further, albeit smaller quakes, were felt again on Thursday.
The “clusters” of quakes have puzzled scientists who say such a pattern is unusual because they have not been linked to a major shock. So what’s going on?
What is happening in Santorini?
Experts agree the island is experiencing what Greece’s prime minister has called an “extremely and intricate geological phenomenon”.
“It is really unprecedented, we have never seen something like this before in [modern times] in Greece,” says Dr Athanassios Ganas, research director of the National Observatory of Athens.
Santorini lies on the Hellenic Volcanic Arc – a chain of islands created by volcanoes.
But it has not seen a major eruption in recent times, in fact not since the 1950s, so the reason for the current crisis is unclear.
Experts say they’re seeing many earthquakes within a relatively small area, which don’t fit the pattern of a mainshock-aftershock sequence, says Dr Ganas.
He said this began with the awakening of a volcano on Santorini last summer. Then in January there was a “surge” of seismic activity with smaller earthquakes being recorded.
That activity has escalated in the past week.
Thousands of earthquakes have been recorded since Sunday, with Wednesday’s the most significant yet.
