With the arrival of March, Santorini is turning the page on a winter of upheavals the likes of which the island has never experienced since seismic surveys began in 1964. Serenity has returned to the caldera. The cement on the white streets no longer shakes, the sea has calmed down and the pearl of the Cyclades, as this legendary island born from the collapse of a volcano has been nicknamed, has regained its winter tranquillity. Since February 28, earthquakes have no longer exceeded magnitude 4, many being even far below this, unnoticeable, whereas early in the month, the earth was shaking every 10 minutes, sometimes exceeding magnitude 5.

These thousands of earthquakes, which punctuated the winter of the islanders who decided to stay, also fueled a heated controversy. In this region, where seismic activity is traditionally high due to the meeting of the Eurasian and African plates and where an arc of underwater volcanoes stretches out, some scientists were betting in January on a purely seismic episode; others believed from the outset that these permanent vibrations resulted from underwater volcanic activity.

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