EARTHQUAKES IN SPAIN We have had, this morning, a reasonable sized earthquake up in our Alicante Groups area felt by many and it brings to the forefront some information posted into the EiA network back in August and therefore worthy of bringing forward as a reminder and for those amongst you who have joined since....... If your new here you may have gathered that this group keeps a general look out for any threat, predictable or not, that can and will reflect on the members of this group, their safety and indeed the safety of others.....So, I give you one of Jims master classes in edjumacation!!!.......So, what about Earthquakes and Tremors???.......Well, The Spanish Government has it covered of course!!!.......The Instituto Geografica National (IGN) mans a 24hour control room monitoring a network of motion, noise and accelerometer sensors installed across the country and out in the islands. They even monitor Volcanoes on the Canarys!!!.......Earthquakes, like wild fires, are very much unpredictable, and Spain suffers a very large amount of smaller earthquakes that are often felt and referred to as tremors. However, Spain has suffered some very large earthquakes in its time that has resulted in loss of life.......Why?.......Well, the Spanish mainland is part of the Eurasian tectonic plate, a chunk of planet earths crust that we and all of Europe and much of Asia lives on. To the south our neighbours in Morroco sit mainly on the African tectonic plate and therefore up the middle sits a crack, a fault line!!!.......This fault line does not run up the middle of the straights of Gibraltar as is often depicted, but here in southern Spain and northern Morroco we have two fault lines that run inland into both countries.....and Yes, some of us in Spain are piggy in the middle together with Alicante and a number of other provinces!!!.......The earths crust moves continually and it is this movement that causes these quakes and tremors. The fact that Spain, and indeed Alocante & Murcia, sits on or close to two cracks means we get our fair share of them. Spain has another zone in the Pyrenees that is acting as a shock absorber!!!.......However, before you start panicking and remembering what goes on in places like Japan which also sits on the Eurasian plate and a fault line, our end of the Eurasian plate is not crashing into the African plate, a motion that is happening in Japan and the neighbouring plates in that area!!!......The Eurasian and African plates are actually spreading slightly apart!!!.....So, that 4.3 earthquake yesterday over in Seville Province and felt as far afield as Malaga City and well into Huelva in the west, Alameda in the north and over in Granada Province in the East, now comes as no surprise. As a 4.3 magnitude earthquake as measured on the Richter Scale this quake was approaching severe. However, its saving grace was that it was 8 kilometres down into the earths crust and therefore all we felt was the shock waves from it that were minor in retrospect!!!......If that type of quake was shallower we couldve been looking at serious damage, and dare I say it, loss of life and displacement of communities as a worst case!!!......That is why those great guys and girls who sit and train daily as part of the Military Emergency Unit (UME - Unidad Militar de Emergencias) are there......they are not only to assist if need be in forest fires, they are there for disaster relief.....again, the UME subject we will visit in the reasonably near future as another master class of edjumacation.......but the UME can erect a small town of temporary accommodation including medical facilities, they have the equipment ready to move in to clear rubble, they are trained search and rescue personnel and, just as important, bring with them food, water and vital communications......all of which could be lost in a major quake.......So, having given you all sleepless nights may I re-focus your attention back to what we can actually set our sites on, and that is wild fires......no point worry about earthquakes until they happen; and besides, youve got more chance of being hit by a train than dying in an Earthquake!!!.......So, dare I say, have a great day and perhaps we will talk tomorrow on what to do here in Spain in an Earthquake!!!......Jim Fraser for the EiALERT NETWORK
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 08:16:55 +0000
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