Laurence Dollimore
THE coast of southern Spain must be better prepared for a tsunami following an earthquake off Portugal this week, an expert has warned.
Gregorio Gomez Pina (pictured above) said the tremor on Monday, which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, came incredibly close to activating emergency protocols in Cadiz.
According to the tsunami expert and university lecturer, who has a doctorate in civil engineering, had the phenomenon measured a six on the Richter scale, a mathematical forecast predicting the likelihood of a tsunami on the coast of Cadiz would have been kickstarted within 15 minutes.
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Speaking to Onda Cadiz, he said that once an alert is issued, experts would have up to an hour to decide whether there was still a real threat from a monster wave.
However, he added: “What worries me a lot, is that on the Cadiz coast only Chipiona is prepared, which has done its homework.”
He recognised that Andalucia and the national government have made progress with recent studies and plans.
But he warned ‘the local action plans are not yet ready, since each municipality has its own particularities and must have their own system in place.’
Cadiz city, for example, is more at risk from the ravages of a tsunami due to its ‘insular nature’.
Pina added: “They are already working on it, and a conference was even given in June and I know that the mayor has put his team to work… but the truth is that the plan is not yet there.”
He said the people there ‘would not have known how to act’ had a tsunami alert been issued on Monday.
Chipiona, by comparison, has been officially recognised as Tsunami Ready by the UN.
The coastal town, which like most in Cadiz is filled with tourists throughout the summer, has been carrying out tsunami drills since 2020.
It also has signage indicating evacuation routes and an integrated alarm system that alerts its citizens of an impending tsunami.
Pina sees it as ‘essential’ to make the rest of the coastal towns just as prepared.
He said while this means more money and personnel it, ‘it is necessary to do it’.
He added: “Yesterday’s earthquake was a warning… it can happen and we must be prepared, we must all know what to do.”
The expert said the region simply cannot go another summer without being more tsunami ready.
He lamented that the rest of Spain has done ‘nothing’ in comparison to Andalucia.
Pina warned that an earthquake with a magnitude of just six can still cause a two-metre tsunami that would be a ‘disaster’.
He explained: “It is not necessary for it to be a wave of 15 metres, with just a wave of two metres in height with a mass of water of two kilometres associated with it, everything becomes a disaster, a river of water that begins to flow through the city, with everything that would entail.”
Monday’s quake off the south of Portugal was felt as far away as Cadiz, Sevilla and Huelva.
According to the National Geographic Institute, it struck at 6.11am.
