In southern Greece, the archipelago of Santorini borders the underwater volcano Kolumbo. The latter is considered to be one of the most active in the Mediterranean and above all the one with the greatest potential for destruction.
The volcanic threat remains very real in the Mediterranean Sea. Volcanologists and geologists say the still active undersea volcano Kolumbo, located just five kilometers from the tourist archipelago of Santorini in southern Greece, will level this group of islands when it enters a phase of recovery again. intense eruption, reports CNN. The only unknown: the date of this next spurt.
Unknown date but inevitable outcome
Often unknown to the two million tourists who flock to Santorini each year, the Kolumbo volcano, which is part of a regional chain of several volcanoes, the Aegean arc, is a permanent threat to the 15,500 people who reside there year-round. on the archipelago. Scientists record there permanent underground activity which ranks it among the most active volcanoes in the Mediterranean. One certainty: it will one day produce a devastating episode, but this could just as easily take place in the years to come as in several centuries.
The volcano has enough energy to produce an eruptive column that can rise several tens of kilometers into the sky. Depending on the type of eruption that will occur in the future, the lava, gas and ash released from the crater will alter the surface of Santorini in one way or another.
The Kolumbo last erupted in 1650, killing 70 people and triggering a tsunami with a 20-meter wave, almost as high as the wave that hit Japanese shores during the tsunami de 2011.
These discharges could even devastate the archipelago in the same proportions as a major eruption which partially destroyed the island around 1600 BC. According to historians, this event would have precipitated the fall of the millennial civilization of the Minoans, founded and based on the large island of Crete, south of Greece. Since its formation around 400,000 years ago, the archipelago has experienced around a hundred eruptions.
“Volcanoes Give Many Warnings”
Ten years ago, a increased seismic activity raised fears of a new eruption in the Santorini area, but the reported intensity gradually decreased to the current level.
“If we begin to observe an increase in activity at Kolumbo, we will have to be vigilant,” said volcanologist Tim Druitt, co-director of an American expedition that studied the activity of the crater. “The good news is that volcanoes give a lot of warnings,” he said.
Scientific interest and government monitoring of Kolumbo’s activity has grown over the past twenty years as the volcano’s activity has been better understood. In 2020, the Greek Civil Protection Agency has published a document of 185 pages detailing the consequences of a potential eruption of volcanoes in the Santorini region.
