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Earthquakes rock Spain - 12 May 2011

Two earthquakes struck the Spanish town of Lorca yesterday evening, leaving at least nine people dead and 130 injured in the most deadly tremors to hit the country in more than 50 years. Seismologists described the quakes, measuring 4.4 and 5.2 on the Richter scale, as ‘moderate’ but they still seem to have damages more than 20,000 buildings and resulted in the majority of the 90,000 residents of Lorca spending the night outdoors.

It is believed that many of those who died, including one pregnant woman, were killed by falling masonry during the second quake, having sought refuse in the open after the first tremor.

Lorca is a medieval town in the Murcia region, where many ancient buildings and streets are said to have been damaged by the quakes. The shocks hit Lorca just before 7pm and could be felt as far away as Madrid. Thousands of people spent the evening and night in the open air as they were unable or too scared to go back into their homes. Some 350 ambulances ferried more then 400 people to hospital.

Some villages in the surrounding area are said to have had damage to every single building, while in other places people were today allowed to return home. Spain endures hundred of earthquakes every year, with Murcia being the most seismically-active part of the country – though the vast majority of tremors are far too small to be felt.

The latest earthquakes have left thousands of people homeless in Lorca, and the clean-up operation is expected to take some weeks. The area around Murcia has recently been one of the more popular in Spain for overseas property buyers – several contributors to local websites used by expat communities have reported feeling the tremors and talked about how they reacted. Some of those joined in a forum discussion on the Eye on Spain website.

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