Residents on the popular island of Santorini have experienced thousands of earthquakes this month while researchers have revealed a new magma chamber growing underneath the Kolumbo submarine volcano.

Santorini has fallen victim to a series of false, viral videos which allegedly show the Greek island engulfed in lava, as it deals with a real state of emergency caused by hundreds of tremors since the end of January.

Multiple earthquakes are rattling Santorini, a volcanic island in Greece, prompting authorities to dispatch rescuers with tents, a sniffer dog and drones, and to shut schools on four islands.

The last time Kolumbo experienced a major eruption was 1650, coughing out ash seen as far away as Turkey. Pyroclastic flows – fast-moving, searingly hot clouds of volcanic ash and gases – killed 70 people.

Earthquakes rattled Greece’s volcanic island of Santorini every few minutes overnight and into Wednesday as authorities bolstered emergency plans in case the hundreds of temblors over the past few days are a harbinger of a larger quake to come.