Thousands evacuate Santorini after earthquakes shake a Greek island

Thousands of residents are fleeing from the Greek island of Santorini against a wave of seismic activity.

About 6,000 people have left the island from Ferry since Sunday, according to local media, with emergency flights being scheduled to leave on Tuesday.

More than 300 earthquakes have been registered in the last 48 hours near the island – and some experts say that tremors can last weeks. Authorities have closed schools throughout the week and warn of large indoor gatherings, but Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitotakis called for peace.

Santorini is a popular tourist destination known for their washed buildings, but most of the leaving are the locals as February is outside the peak tourist season.

Several trems, measuring to magnitude 4.7, were recorded northeast of Santorini early on Tuesday.

Although no major damage has been reported so far, emergencies are taken as a precautionary measure.

Hundreds of people queued in a harbor in the early hours of Tuesday morning to get on a ferry departing the mainland.

“Everything is closed. No one is working now. The whole island is emptied,” an 18-year-old resident told Reuters before boarding the ship.

In addition to 6,000 people who have left the island with a ferry from Sunday, about 2500 to 2,700 passengers will fly from Santorini to Athens by plane on Monday and Tuesday, according to Aegean Airlines.

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

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

Costas Sakavaras, a guide that has lived on Santorini for 18 years, leaves the island with his wife and children on Monday.

“We thought it was a better choice to come to the continent as a precaution,” he told BBC News.

“Nothing falls or something,” he said, adding that the biggest part was the sound. “This is the worst part of it,” said Sakavaras, who plans to return home after the schools are reopened.

Schools are planned to remain closed on the island until Friday. Authorities also warned people to avoid certain areas of the island and to empty their pools.

Prime Minister Mitotakis said on Monday that Greece is working to manage a “very intensive geological phenomenon”.

Seismologists believe that recent tremors are insignificant, but preventive measures have been introduced in case a larger quake appears.

Emergency services have warned residents to leave the Amudi, Armenian and Old Fira regions due to landslides.

The Regional Fire Service in southern Aegean has been sent a general alarm and rescue teams, with crews of large yellow medical tents standing on the island.

Santorini is what is known as the Hellenic volcanic arc – a chain of islands created by volcanoes – but the last major eruption was in the 50s.

Greek authorities have said recent tremor are related to the movements of tectonic plates instead of volcanic activity.