Authorities on a Portuguese island in the north Atlantic are preparing for the possible evacuation of local people, as six straight days of tremors stoked fears of a possible major earthquake or volcanic eruption. The president of the Azores Islands’ regional government said on Thursday that airlines were increasing the number of flights into and out of São Jorge, where about 8,300 people live, for people who prefer to leave now. Scientists say it is hard to predict the consequences of the persistent, though low-intensity, seismic activity. “Anything could happen, nothing might happen,” the Azores president, José Manuel Bolieiro, told reporters in televised comments during a visit to the island. Officials in the island municipality of Velas, the epicentre of more than 2,000 minor earthquakes since 19 March, are taking elderly people who may have difficulty in quickly evacuating to another part of the island as a precautionary measure. Emergency services have established safe corridors for traffic and temporary accommodation for evacuees on the eastern side of the island in case they are needed. Velas has about 3,000 inhabitants. Any public alerts were to be transmitted on local radio, on social media or by ringing church bells, officials said. São Jorge is one of the nine islands that make up the Azores, which lie roughly 1,500km (about 1,000 miles) west of the Portuguese mainland. The island is about 58km (36 miles) long and 6km (almost four miles) across at its widest point. Fishing and farming are the island’s economic mainstays. A line of dormant volcanic cones extends along the island’s central ridge, which reaches just over 1,000 meters (3,300ft) at its highest point. São Jorge is a volcanic island, which witnessed eruptions in 1580 and 1808. Both are reported to have caused casualties, but reliable information from the time is not available. The last volcanic eruption on land in the Azores was in 1957, on Faial Island. An earthquake on the same island in 1998 killed 10 people.