Earthquake in Murcia

The Region of Murcia suffered a small earthquake yesterday, 4.6 on the Richter scale. 22 families from the villages of Zarcilla de Ramos and La Paca have had to leave their homes because of damage caused by the earth tremors which were felt by people in varios provinces in southern Spain, Almería, Jaén, Granada, Albacete and Ciudad Real. In Zarcilla de Ramos over 200 houses have been damaged by the earthquake. Nobody was injured.

According to the Worldwide Earthquake Register of the University of Edinburgh:

"An earthquake is a series of shock waves generated following the brittle failure of rocks within the earth's crust or upper mantle as a result of a build up of stress. Failure occurs at a point or in a fairly small zone (known as the focus) with the epicentre being the point on the earth' surface directly above this focus. However, once failure has occured, movement may persist along a zone of weakness (known as a fault) for a considerable distance (occasionally as much as 1000 Km).

Many earthquakes occur each year, on average greater than 800,000, but most are small and not felt humans. A severe earthquake, with a magnitude of greater than 8.0, can be expected every 8 to 10 years. But a significant number of smaller earthquakes, which are still capable of destruction, occur each year".