Week of tremors exposes dangers of Santorini's construction boom

Bangkok Post Group

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.

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