Cristina Hodgson
ACCORDING to the National Geographic Institute, two earthquakes have been registered in the province of Granada this week.
A 2.2 magnitude earthquake, at a depth of one kilometre, was registered in the early hours of this Thursday morning, at precisely at 00:23 hours, with its epicentre in the municipality of Arenas del Rey.
“No calls were received from concerned residents” reported the 112 emergency service.
The previous day, Wednesday, a 2.4 magnitude earthquake was also registered in the province of Granada, this time with epicentre in Atarfe.
The quakes come after a succession of tremors registered in Granada over the last weeks.
But according to the experts, the activity is not out of the ordinary, in fact up to 1,400 earthquake tremors are logged each year on the Iberian peninsula.
Hotbeds for micro-tremors are Spain’s Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca.
According to Mercedes Feriche, from the Andalucian Institute of Geophysics and Seismic Disaster Prevention at the University of Granada (UGR), Granada city and province is a ‘cradle for micro-tremors’ and ‘always has been.’
Meanwhile, the head of Alicante University’s Seismic Unit, Jose Delgado, said that the reason behind Spain’s eastern coast having a lot of seismic activity is because ‘it lies on the Eurasian Plate just to the north of its boundary with the African Plate.’
According to Delgado, dozens of earthquakes occur in the Alicante Province each year that nobody notices because of to the depth of the tremor.
“Everything is absolutely normal,” he said.
