Hundreds of small earthquakes that shook Greece's tourist hotspot of Santorini this week have revived concerns about the safety of a decades-long construction boom along the island's sheer, volcanic cliffs, experts said. - REUTERS
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00:00Hundreds of small quakes in Santorini this week have renewed concerns about the safety
00:07of decades-long cliffside construction. Experts have long questioned the sustainability of
00:13Santorini's tourism boom. And that's particularly true of the caldera, the rim of an ancient
00:20sunken volcano whose sides plunge into the clear waters of the Aegean. A 2021 report
00:27found that many buildings there had no permits, nearly a quarter of which were tourism businesses.
00:34Efthymios Lekas is an expert in dynamic tectonic and applied geology.
00:43Those that have occupied the caldera and built on morphological discontinuities, those buildings
00:47are particularly vulnerable. So we cannot foresee the behavior of those buildings.
00:55Experts have warned that the seismic activity could last for weeks, and they have not ruled
01:00out the possibility of a larger quake to come.
01:04The tremors prompted the government to declare a state of emergency on Thursday. It shut
01:09schools and deployed the army. Meanwhile, thousands of people left on planes and ferries.
01:16Authorities announced landslide warnings for five areas, including Santorini's main port.
01:23They also cordoned off areas along the caldera, where the Environment Ministry had halted
01:28construction in November.
01:31Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged calm when he visited the island on Friday,
01:38saying that Greece has a very strict building code. Many residents have become used to earthquakes
01:43over the years. But for Italians like Matthias Kourialis, there are fears for the upcoming
01:49holiday season.
01:50If we continue for another couple of months with this situation, the season will be lost,
02:00surely. If there is a decrease in the event, and there is less media attention, and the
02:05seismic activity calms down, we are in a time frame where we will be able to recover.
02:18Millions visit Santorini's whitewashed cobbled streets and blue-domed buildings each year.
02:24In recent years, excessive tourism has raised concerns about shortages and overcrowding
02:30across Greece.