Thousands of people, locals and visitors, have already fled or are still fleeing the island of Santorini after days of intense seismic activity have raised fears of an impending big earthquake and even a possible eruption of the volcano.
Young and old with their cars are flocking to the port. Elderly with the help of a walking stock, babies in the arms of their parents and pets in their carrier are crowding in the port or at the airport to get a seat that will bring them to safety and stable soil under their feet.
Hundreds of earthquakes have rattled the area in the last couple of days, with the tremor magnitudes slowly increasing to over 5 on the Richter scale. As seismologists cannot agree on a common line and prediction, conflicting statements are confusing the people who rather temporary move to another place away from the area.
However, some residents have decided to stay with one telling media “I have nowhere to go…”
Many have spent the recent nights in their cars fearing to sleep at home, while others have gathered to community gathering spots.
Authorities have been set on high alert and shut down schools until Friday, February 7, dispatched rescue teams and trained dogs.
Imagine now if this was happening during the tourist season! It would be chaos.
I think a big fear now is a potential tsunami and consequences that would cause. But they’ve had hundreds of small earthquakes. I often hear that small earthquakes relieve fault line pressure; let’s hope so.