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Home / World

Nonstop quakes leave a tourist island empty and its residents on edge

By Niki Kitsantonis
New York Times·
11 Feb, 2025 12:54 AM5 mins to read

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Residents of Santorini island and tourists board the ferry in order to flee the island after the recent seismic activity. (Photo / SOOC via AFP

Residents of Santorini island and tourists board the ferry in order to flee the island after the recent seismic activity. (Photo / SOOC via AFP

Thousands of tremors, sometimes every few minutes, have shaken Santorini, Greece. More than 13,000 of its 15,500 inhabitants have left.

February is a slow time on the Greek island of Santorini, which draws more than three million visitors annually.

But after another week of near-constant earthquakes, the island has taken on an unusual quiet. At least 13,000 of the island’s 15,500 residents, unnerved by the frequent shaking, have left in the past week. The streets are mostly deserted, except for the occasional tourists, most of them from Asia.

Thousands of tremors, sometimes every few minutes, have jolted Santorini, about 240km southeast of Athens, and nearby islands since January 25. The shaking initially peaked with a magnitude 5.2 earthquake Wednesday northeast of Santorini. A magnitude-5 quake was felt in Athens on Sunday night, and then a 5.3 quake struck the same area late Monday.

Most of the tremors have been relatively small, but there have been 160 tremors with a magnitude of more than 4 in the first nine days of February, compared with 90 of that strength for all of last year, Vassilis Karastathis, director of the Institute of Geodynamics at the National Observatory of Athens, said Monday.

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The outlook for Santorini, one of Greece’s most popular islands, remains unclear. Experts said making a reliable prediction about what would come next with the shaking was impossible.

“There are signs of stabilisation, but we need to see a further drop in the frequency of the tremors to be sure,” Karastathis said, adding that the quakes could continue for weeks. “A lot of the seismic energy has been released, but we still can’t rule out a large earthquake.”

The shaking has prompted the authorities to shut schools and bar large indoor gatherings. Emergency workers have been deployed to the island, and landing craft are on standby for possible evacuations. Some areas of Santorini have been cordoned off because of landslide fears, and sandbags have been set up next to seaside homes. Psychologists from the Hellenic Red Cross have counselled worried residents, and priests have held prayers for the quakes to stop.

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After a state of emergency was declared last Thursday to ensure that aid could be released quickly, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece said all possible action was being taken. “We’re preparing for the worst while hoping for the best,” he said during a visit to the island on Friday, urging residents to remain calm.

Many opted not to risk it.

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Giorgos Kalamatas, 37, who owns a business that organises fireworks for weddings on Santorini, returned to his family home in Athens last Monday with his wife and their three young children. “The constant shaking was nerve-wracking, and we were worried about the kids,” Kalamatas, 37, said, adding that he hoped to return next weekend. “We’re going to have to live with it.”

Officials have taped off areas of the island as a precaution due to recent seismic activities. Photo / Getty Images
Officials have taped off areas of the island as a precaution due to recent seismic activities. Photo / Getty Images

Others said they had no choice but to stay. Renia Bledaki, a 52-year-old makeup artist whose clients are mostly American, British or Australian brides marrying on the island, last week sent her two teenage children to live at a relative’s home in Athens. She stayed behind to look after her aunt and uncle, who are elderly.

For several days, she and her husband spent the night huddled in blankets as they slept in their car. “We were in one car, and my aunt and uncle in another,” Bledaki said, adding that during bigger tremors, “the car was bouncing”.

Scientists have said that the faultline that is triggering the current quakes is different from the one that set off disastrous earthquakes of up to 7.7 magnitude in 1956, killing 53 people and causing widespread damage.

The key question is whether the current tremors constitute a “seismic swarm,” a sequence of tremors without a distinct main earthquake, or whether they are a precursor to a larger temblor of a magnitude around six, Karastathis said.

A scientific committee said last week that the seismic activity was not linked to two volcanoes in the area and ruled out an eruption. On Monday, scientists retrieved underwater seismic monitors and installed new ones, hoping to gather more clues.

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For Bledaki, the endless questions are the biggest headache. “Will we have a six-level quake? Will our homes withstand it? Will the Columbo erupt?” she asked, referring to a nearby submerged volcano. “It’s like a science fiction movie.”

Many of those who have stayed on Santorini work in hotels, even though most are closed. Annual renovations are in limbo, after construction and repair work was banned during the quakes. “One employee was scared and left, and others aren’t sure about returning in April,” said Antonis Iliopoulos who owns three hotels on the island. He said he has yet to receive cancellations for spring bookings and saw the quakes as “more an annoyance than a danger”.

The country’s environment ministry halted construction in Santorini’s caldera, the rim of an ancient volcano that gave the island its unique shape, in November for a year. The ministry cited concerns about overdevelopment, and asked hotel operators to conduct risk assessments. The quakes have revived questions about the stability of many structures there.

Hotels in the cliff-side areas of Fira and Oia, popular with tourists for their spectacular views, could be most at risk from landslides, said Dimitrios Papanikolaou, a geology professor at the University of Athens, who said that foundations made of hardened lava and pumice stone would be “flimsy”.

“In those areas, a stronger earthquake could cause sections of buildings like balconies and swimming pools to collapse,” he said.

Officials discussed the same risks during a quake swarm in 2011, Papanikolaou added. “They talked about making buildings safer, but nothing happened,” he said. “Now they’re talking about it again, but when the quakes stop, we’ll probably forget about it, until it happens again in 10, 20, 30 years.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Niki Kitsantonis

©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES

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