The authorities in Greece on Monday closed schools and deployed emergency services on the Aegean island of Santorini, one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, after the area was rattled by hundreds of minor and moderate earthquakes.
The ministry for civil protection said on Sunday that more than 200 tremors had struck the Aegean region between Santorini and Amorgos in the past 48 hours. They continued into Monday, shaking residents sometimes every few minutes. Precautions were also taken on several other islands affected by the tremors, with schools closed and emergency teams on standby.
Gerasimos Papadopoulos, a seismologist, wrote on Facebook that the quakes had been increasing in magnitude, calling them an “intense pre-seismic sequence.”
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking from Brussels, where he is attending a meeting of E.U. leaders, appealed to islanders to “be calm and follow civil protection orders.”
Most of the tremors were minor, but some exceeded magnitude 4.5, and Mr. Papadopoulos referred to readings of 4.7 and 4.9 in his Facebook post.
There were no reports of injuries, and only minimal damage, including minor landslides, was recorded by the authorities. Greece sits on multiple fault lines and is often rattled by earthquakes, but such a sequence of tremors growing in intensity is less common.
Article by:Source:
