Spain’s Alhambra palace was closed to visitors after a magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck near the southern city of Granada on Tuesday morning, lightly injuring three people and sending residents into the streets.
The quake hit at about 10.38 am local time (0838 GMT), with its epicentre in the town of Alhendín, 10 kilometres south of Granada, at a depth of under 10 kilometres, according to Spain’s National Geographic Institute. It was the strongest of a series of tremors to hit the region that morning.
Damage and response
Emergency services received more than 500 calls in Granada reporting cracks, falling debris and other incidents, including about a dozen requests for medical assistance, mostly for anxiety attacks.
Three people were lightly hurt, among them a girl taken to hospital, said Antonio Sanz, the Andalusia region’s top emergencies official. He ruled out very serious structural damage to homes, which he said “held up well”. Vehicles were damaged by falling debris, and a social worker in the nearby town of La Zubia reported chimneys coming down.
Granada city hall closed all municipal buildings except those providing emergency and essential services. Museums, administrative buildings and sports centres shut, and the city’s metro reduced train speeds to 30 km/h as a precaution.
Mayor Marifran Carazo urged residents to stay indoors and, in the event of another tremor, to avoid standing alongside buildings. “I know the anguish we experienced this morning, especially among our elderly people and young children, who had never experienced a situation like this before,” she said.
The palace
The Alhambra, a UNESCO-listed complex of medieval Islamic architecture that drew 2.7 million visitors last year, closed for the remainder of the day.
A first inspection found no significant structural damage or risk of collapse, Sanz said, though there were “very localised situations” of minor damage to non-structural elements including battlements, plasterwork and decorative features. “That must be taken into account in terms of visitor safety, but not from the point of view of risk to our incredibly rich heritage,” he told an evening briefing.
A continuing sequence
Tuesday’s quake followed a magnitude 5.0 tremor that woke Granada residents shortly after 1 am on Saturday — described by officials as Andalusia’s strongest since 1955. That earlier quake caused building damage but no injuries.
“Everything came crashing down. It was terrifying,” said Cristina Ruiz Lopez, a lab worker who was in a Granada supermarket when Tuesday’s quake struck.
