Earlier this month Greek authorities declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini amid fears of an imminent major earthquake that could potentially trigger a tsunami in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. That alarming prospect even put distant Israel on alert.
Israel is slightly more than 600 miles east of Santorini, where more than 7,700 earthquakes have been recorded since January 26.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council on convened an urgent meeting with government agencies to assess the threat of a tsunami. That same day Greek authorities held a crisis meeting at Athens as Turkey warned of “the risk of tsunami that may be generated after the eruption or earthquake.”
A magnitude 5.2 (according to some reports, 5.1) earthquake struck near Santorini recently. Experts have warned that despite that sizeable jolt, it was still likely a precursor to a larger earthquake to come. The day before, more than 1,300 smaller earthquakes were registered. The epicenter was not Santorini itself but under the Aegean Sea, slightly northeast of the island.
The state of emergency that Greek officials declared for Santorini on Thursday afternoon could remain in effect until March 3. The earthquakes have been felt in the nearby islands of Amorgos, Anafi, and Ios.
The threat assessment in Israel is understood to include plans to protect critical infrastructure and prepare evacuation routes in the event a major earthquake at Santorini triggers a tsunami.
The fear in Santorini itself is more about a potential tsunami generated by an earthquake than a volcanic eruption. Seismologists say that the recent earthquakes are emanating from an undersea fault that runs for about 75 miles between Santorini and Amorgos.
Fears are growing, though. One of the participants of the crisis meeting at Athens on Wednesday was a “professor of natural disasters,” Kostas Synolakis. Speaking on the Mega television channel he laid out three scenarios. The first one, he said, is “that the seismic swarm will stop, as happened in 2011. The second scenario is that all these vibrations will lead to a larger earthquake,” while the third is that “at some point we will have a small paroxysm of the Santorini or Kolumbo volcano.”
Kolumbo is the name of an active undersea volcano five miles northeast of Santorini.
On the same show, a professor of tectonic geology and geodynamics, Dimitris Papanikolao, said that the entire section of an undersea fault that runs through Kolumbo “could well produce an earthquake of magnitude 6.0.”
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck south of Amorgos in 1956 triggered a tsunami that, combined with the quake itself, killed an estimated 56 people and caused injuries to a hundred more.
Normally crowded in the summer months with tourists, the island is always quieter in winter but now more so, although residents who left are starting to trickle back.
Some cruise ship companies have reportedly been looking at alternative ports of call, such as Syros, but it is a dynamic situation, so stay tuned.
