Thousands evacuates Santorini after the earthquakes stirred Greek island

Thousands of residents flee from the Greek island of Santorini in the middle of a wave of seismic activity.

Some 6,000 people have left the island in Ferry since Sunday, according to local media, with emergency flights scheduled to leave Tuesday.

More than 300 earthquakes have been recorded in the last 48 hours near the island, and some experts say that tremors can continue for weeks. The authorities have closed schools throughout the week and warned against large interior meetings, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has urged calm.

Santorini is a popular tourist destination known for its enchanted buildings, but most of those who leave are local, since February is outside the maximum tourist season.

Several tremors, which measure up to magnitude 4.7, registered to the northeast of Santorini early on Tuesday.

Although important damage has not been reported until now, emergency measures are being taken as caution.

Hundreds of people queued in a port in the early hours of Tuesday morning to address a ferry that goes to the continent.

“Everything is closed. Nobody works now. The entire island has emptied,” a 18 -year -old local resident told the Reuters news agency before boarding the ship.

In addition to 6,000 people who have left the island in Ferry since Sunday, around 2,500 to 2,700 passengers will have flown from Santorini to Athens by plane on Mondays and Tuesdays, according to Aegean Airlines.

The carrier said he had added three emergency flights to his schedule, with space for hundreds of passengers, after a request from the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection.

Santorini is a small island with a population of only 15,500. Welcome millions of tourists every year.

Kostas Sakavaras, a tourist guide who has lived in Santorini for 18 years, left the island with his wife and children on Monday.

“We consider it a better option to come to the continent as a precaution,” he told BBC News.

“Nothing has been falling, or anything like that,” he said, adding that the worst part had been the sound. “That is the most terrifying part,” said Sakavaras, who plans to return home once the schools open again.

The schools are scheduled to remain closed on the island until Friday. The authorities have also warned people to avoid certain areas of the island and empty their pools.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis said on Monday that Greece was working to administer “a very intense geological phenomenon.”

Seismologists consider that recent tremors are lower, but preventive measures have been implemented in case a larger earthquake occurs.

Emergency services have warned the residents who leave the areas of Ammoudi, Armeni and the old port of Fira due to landslides.

The Regional Fire Department of Southern Aegean has been placed in general alert equipment and rescue equipment has been sent, with foot crews of a large surveillance of yellow medical stores on the island.

Santorini is known as the Hellenic volcanic arch, a chain of islands created by volcanoes, but the last important eruption was in the 1950s.

The Greek authorities said the recent tremors were related to the movements of the tectonic plate instead of volcanic activity.