The streets of Santorini emptied out as the Greek island endured an ongoing wave of seismic activity that began on January 25 and peaked on Monday night with a 5.3-magnitude earthquake, according to the National Observatory of Athens.
While most previous tremors had measured between 2 and 3 on the Richter scale, in the first nine days of February alone, 160 quakes of magnitude 4 or higher occurred.
Monday’s earthquake struck offshore at 8:16 p.m. GMT (10:16 p.m. local time), south of Amorgos Island, approximately 37 kilometers northeast of Santorini, the world-famous volcanic island.
Greek civil protection authorities declared a state of emergency on the island last week after registering around 7,700 tremors in just seven days.
The seismic activity extended far beyond Greece to other Mediterranean countries, with earthquakes also having been recorded Monday night in Morocco, Spain, Egypt, and Libya.