Santorini, a beloved Greek tourist destination, is facing a troubling time. Why?  Tremors have been shaking up the island, and not too delicately . Strong earthquakes occurred Wednesday night. The last time that magnitude was reached in one of these periodic quakes was around 1956.

Strong earthquakes, the highest ones in a long round of tremors, shook Santorini. This was on Wednesday evening.

Here's a number: 11, 000. That's the number of residents who cleared out of there while it all was happening.

 Not even tourists want to stay here at the moment due to these tremors.

Rescuers are working hard. Greek officials declared a state of emergency. This was to handle the effects of these seismic events today The island will be under the State of emergency until March 3rd.

So far, there hasn't been any reports of major damage. But authorities are preparing.

The overall historical context is needed to understand what's happening here. Santorini has its interesting geological features.  It owes its shape to geological phenomena from thouands of years ago. You can also say geological events that happened from tens of centuries ago--volcanic eruptions, of which the one in 1600 BC was massive. Those volcanic eruptions shaped this Greek tourist hotspot, and are still in part what the island has to show for itself.

A sea of tourists makes Santorini a city of around 3. 4 million people annually.  This tourist favorite is bustling usually. That being said the island is home to around 20, 000 permanent residents only. But that didn't make it less of a hub of events.  The Santaorini 20, 000 residents and 3. 4 million tourists were fully moved by these tremors.   So many left the island.

Overall, Santorini's last major event that affected the residents and visitors was in 1956. That's when a 7. 5 magnitude earthquake happened. At least 53 people died in that one.

But officials are keeping track of the seismic events today and are urging residents to cooperate.  The Island's residents started their departure for the main land of Greece by Wednesday night.

The rescue operation got complicated with the departure of the flights. Ferries were not allowed to depart the ports due to the bad weather conditions.  Now, The evacuation efforts were further complicated by the high winds.

Greek authorities are doing their best to manage these events.

Each part of the Greek island group, including Amorgos and Ios, was affected by the tremors.  It's a reminder that cities like Santorini are near the boundary of two powerful tectonic plates: the African and Eurasian plates.

Geological shake-up alerts Santorini, Greek officials step in

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