Swarm of earthquakes makes the Costa Blanca and Murcia tremble

A dozen offshore tremors recorded in the south of the province yesterday and this morning

A total of 12 small earthquakes occurred nearby off the southern Costa Blanca within a few hours of each other between Monday evening and this morning.

The first was recorded by Spain’s National Geographic Institute (IGN) at 7.14pm local time, just off the coast of Torrevieja.

They measured that it had a magnitude of 1.3 and happened at a depth of 0 kilometres, i.e right at the level of the seabed.

Some residents of Torrevieja reported having felt the earthquake, and based on their reports the quake was assigned a level of II (in Roman numerals) on the European Macroseismic Intensity scale, which goes up to XII (12) for total destruction, meaning that it was very weak and only felt by a few people, particularly those at rest.

Later that evening, at 9.23pm, a much larger earthquake occurred 66 kilometres out to sea, with a magnitude of 3.6 and at a shallow depth of 2km.

Despite the distance from land, this was reported by 31 people up and down the coast, all the way from Cartagena to Jávea and as far inland as Cocentaina, but it was still weak enough to be assigned an intensity of II.

This was followed by several more in the same area: one of magnitude 1.9 at 9.39pm that was 33km deep; another 1.9 at 9.45pm but 13km deep; a 2.1 at 21.48, 16km deep; a 1.6 at 10pm 3km deep; a 1.7 at 10.11pm 20km deep; a 2.0 at 10.25pm 24km deep; and a 1.7 at 10.40pm 33km deep.

Later on, there was one of magnitude 1.5 at 3.25am closer to the coast of Santa Pola ; a 1.6 at 3.56am 20km deep further out to sea in the same area as the others; and finally a 1.7 at 6.36am 17km deep nearby.

A sequence of earthquakes in the same area within a relatively short period is known as a swarm.

Seismic activity is quite common in the south of the province due to the Crevillente Fault zone, a major fault system extending from Cadiz to Alicante.

Images: IGN