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Thousands of people have fled the island of Santorini as hundreds of quakes continued to course through the famous Greek tourist destination.
More than 6,000 residents have left the island in recent days, according to Greek public broadcaster ERT. Early Tuesday morning, hundreds of people carrying their belongings were seen waiting at a port on the island, waiting for a ferry to take them to Athens.
A tremor with a magnitude of 4.8 was recorded early Tuesday, just shy of a 4.9 quake recorded over the weekend – the strongest so far. Over the past three days, some 550 tremors with a magnitude of 3.0 have been recorded in the Aegean Sea, between Santorini and the nearby islands of Amorgos and Ios.
Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization (OASP) has estimated that the intense seismic activity may continue for many more days, if not weeks.
Santorini, dubbed Greece’s “Instagram Island,” attracts some 3.4 million visitors a year but is only home to around 20,000 permanent residents. Many of those have decided to flee the island for the safety of the mainland.
“I work on the island, I have been a resident for years. But today… nobody was expecting this to happen, what is happening now on the island is incredible,” Julian Sinanaj, a 35-year-old resident, told Reuters.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday urged residents to remain calm as authorities deal with “a very intense geological phenomenon.”
Additional flights have been announced to help residents get to safety, with 15 flights from Santorini to Athens scheduled for Tuesday. Schools on the island will remain closed until Friday and residents have been advised to avoid large indoor gatherings.
“Everything is closed. No one works now. The whole island has emptied,” Dori, an 18-year-old resident, told Reuters.
Sitting near the boundary of the massive African and Eurasian tectonic plates, Santorini is no stranger to tremors, although near-constant seismic events like this are rare.
The island is famed for its caldera – a bowl-shaped crater caused by a volcanic eruption – which was formed by one of the largest known blasts around 3,600 years ago.
Santorini’s most recent large quake – with a 7.5 magnitude – struck in 1956, killing at least 53 people and injuring more than 100 others.
