Imagine that you arrived in Santorini and were told that a huge “crater” could open under you? This is exactly what happened when one of Greece’s leading seismologists pulled off an April Fool’s joke that didn’t work the way he wanted. Now he is under investigation for seismic disturbances.
Akis Tselentis, director of the Greek Geodynamic Institute and Tsunami Center, posted a picture of himself on Facebook last Wednesday in a mock photographer’s pose with a sign that read “guilty of an April Fool’s joke.”
“We live in a country where humor is persecuted,” he added.
On Tuesday, the prosecutor ordered a preliminary investigation to determine whether Celentis’ April 1 publication could be qualified as spreading false information.
“Things are not going well with Santorini,” Celentis said.
“Since January, we have been observing the gradual disappearance of magma under the volcano,” the April Fool’s joke said in the message.
Celentis said there was a “strong possibility” that the magma would drift towards the fictitious volcano, leaving a funnel-shaped vacuum that would “suck in the waters of the Aegean.”
Santorini was completely changed by a volcanic eruption at the end of the 17th century BC that destroyed the culturally advanced Minoan colony, and geothermal activity, accompanied by seismic shocks, remains high to this day.
The last major eruption of the most active part of the volcano under the uninhabited island of black lava Kameni near Santorini occurred in 1950.
