The head of Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, Prof. Efthymios Lekkas, on Friday said seismologists in the country appear confident that the risk of a “major quake” exceeding 6 on the Richter scale , as a result of intense seismic activity in the southern Aegean over the past week or so, is decreasing.
Lekkas, a professor of applied geology and disaster management at the University of Athens, said a latest meeting of experts on seismic and volcanic risk will convene on Saturday to examine the latest data and proceed with further recommendations to the state.
“I consider that a scenario pointing to a 6 or more on the Richter scale quake is off the table,” he said, while adding that the subterranean energy accumulated in the affected region is constantly decreasing. “Today we are a little more optimistic than we were yesterday.”
Meanwhile, in a related development, Prof. Costas Synolakis, a noted academic and researcher, said a tide gauge will be installed next week on Santorini. He spoke after a visit to the volcanic island on Friday by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Synolakis, the secretary of the Athens Academy’s division of natural sciences and a celebrated USC civil and environmental engineering professor, said such devices contribute towards a “targeted alert” of coming natural phenomena. He also underlined that a tide gauge should have been installed on the island as long as 30 years ago.
Seismic swarm
Back in the Greek capital on the mainland, the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens on Friday announced that more than 8,900 earthquakes were recorded in the Santorini-Amorgos axis in the southern Aegean since Jan. 26.
The university report states that although a sizable number of tremors registering above 4 on the Richter continued over the past few days, the rate of seismic activity shows a relative decrease, both in terms of earthquakes recorded with conventional methods and, of late, using AI.
The most prominent quakes on Friday came at 17:16 (15.16 GMT), registering 4.4R, followed a minute later by a 4.5R quake.
The epicenter of the twin tremors was yet again south, southwest of the island of Amorgos, to the northeast of Santorini.
Animated video depicts ‘Minoan eruption’ of Thira volcano on Santorini
Meanwhile, a newly created video posted on Youtube, ostensibly by a Greek user, attempts to recreate what the cataclysmic Minoan volcanic eruption, circa 1600 BC, that caused the island of Thira (alternately Thera), today’s Santorini, to break into three parts and created the iconic Caldera.
The video had already garnered more than 126,000 views as of Friday.
