Murcia Earthquakes - The Facts

We will be conducting checks of the properties which we manage within a 25 Km radius of the epicentre, and reporting to owners. Properties in La Manga, Mar Menor, Los Alcazares and the Campo de Cartagena suffered no ill effects. If you are a concerned owner, please feel free to call us or drop us an email.

Spain is a very mountainous country. It is not a widely-known fact that Spain is the second most mountainous country in Europe, after Switzerland. Mountains, of course, are built by seismic activity. It is therefore no surprise to learn that large areas of Spain experience earthquakes regularly.

The eastern coast of Spain is - like Italy and Greece, etc - located on a very broad boundary belt between the European and African tectonic plates. The south coast of Spain lies just north of a somewhat narrower and better defined boundary between the two plates. This causes the east to experience mostly milder, near-surface tectonic movements and the south to suffer deeper, more significant movements.  

Other areas of Spain, such as the Pyrenees and Galicia, also experience frequent earthquake activity. This activity is constant (27 earthquakes on mainland Spain in the past 10 days) and generally so mild that only seismologists notice them.

The last major earthquake to hit Spain was a 7.9 in 1954, which struck along the south coast, near Granada and Malaga: over 200 Km from Murcia. It struck at a depth of 640 kilometres and caused a very great deal of damage indeed. The number of deaths was not reported at the time.

Experts at Earthquake-Report.com have assured us that "in recent decades, the larger shallow-focus shocks of south-eastern Spain have had magnitudes of about 5." A magnitude 5 earthquake equates to almost 1000 times less violent than the Granada earthquake of 1954.

In fact, earthquakes of magnitude 5 or so rarely cause damage or death - Spain has actually had nine 5+ earthquakes in the past year. So, while the damage, injuries and mortalities caused by the Lorca earthquake are clearly tragic, please be assured that they are also, mercifully, very rare.

Yesterday's earthquake was a 5.1, but it hit at a depth of only 2km. This rare combination of conditions, combined with the equally rare aspect that it struck only 2Km from a major urbanisation, led to the destruction and damage which Lorca suffered. 

Earthquakes here in Murcia are as common as they are throughout Spain and the Mediterranean countries. Normally, we don't notice them, although you may - as we did yesterday, when the Lorca earthquake hit - feel movement or see lights swaying if you are upstairs (the effects are detected more, the higher you are in a building). If this effects are strong, please immediately go outside and distance yourself from buildings as much as you can. 

Please remember that earthquakes are extremely common, but that larger earthquakes are extremely rare.

If you would like to know what to do if an severe earthquake does strike, please click here for earthquake safety guidelines and advice.