Earthquake in Lorca - local report

[sue james]

The news from Spain earlier this week was there had been two earthquakes in Lorca, Southern Spain. UK television tended to confuse the issue by having its Madrid correspondent report it and it gave the impression that Lorca was a town close to Madrid.

In fact it is some 200 miles south and east of Madrid, the third largest town (after Murcía city and Cartagena) in the small and often overlooked region of Murcía. While not a noted tourist destination it has a number of historic buildings and retained a very traditional atmosphere.

The news dropped off UK TV within 24 hours but this item posted to an ex-pat forum suggests that it will take a long time to re-house thousands of people and to restore Lorca's town centre: 

"Been in & around town today & it's not looking good at all. There was really nothing open whatsoever as they are still inspecting all the buildings.
The Architects & Surveyors have a colour coding scheme for damage;
Green  No danger to occupy; Yellow  The owners can enter to collect their valuables etc, but they may not stay as important building work is needed, 
or the property may be demolished; Black, or in some cases Red  No entry at all because of the danger of immediate collapse.

Nearly 6 out of 10 buildings so far inspected all over town are yellow ,red or black. There's not many green at all.

For those of you who have visited Lorca & entered by coming off the autovia at j591 down to the fountain roundabou
& turned left into the western end of town ( La Viña ), vast areas around here are to be demolished, 
including 2 out of the 4 apartment blocks on the left & possibly a 3rd. 
The opposite side of the road fares slightly better but behind is where the 3 story block collapsed 
( they'll be looking at the construction of this as it wasn't that old ! )  
The situation is no better at the eastern end of town with many buildings marked for demolition. 
Of the 3 mercadonas in town none are open ( The one in La Viña is quite likely to be demolished ), 
the old Eroski centro comercial San Diego is closed although the car park is being used for parking 
& the road by the main exit has an emergency field hospital in it. 
The majority of the main street is closed off . The only supermarket, apart from some smaller ones, that is open is the Eroski Parque Almenara

Where I live in Campillo , quite close to the Parque Almenara, the small village supermarket had people queuing this morning !

The Huerta de la Rueda where the thursday market is held is an emergency centre combined with rescue workers tents & accomodation & emergency food & water supplies.  
There's quite a few around here that are likely to be demolished , including the Convento de religiosas Clarissas which is a building of historical importance & will obviously be rebuilt as it's  a listed building .

No matter where you turned there were people taking what belongings they could carry from their apartments, those that were considered safe to enter, 
& loading them in cars & vans. Others could only look at buildings that are in imminent danger of collapse & no one is going to be allowed to enter & will be demolished along with everything inside.
In all honesty the amount of fachadas cracked, broken , some barely hanging on to buildings in every street you looked down , makes you wonder how they are allowing anyone to be in the town at all. We helped people carrying stuff to their car but they couldn't take everything& what's left they were hoping to be allowed back for.

The scale of the damage I found was far more than I was expecting , & there's not a part of the town that does not have vast amounts of buildings marked for demolition. If this had occurred in the UK I don't think they would be allowing anyone into the whole of the town , due to H&S, it's that bad . This is going to take many, many years to sort out."

[Mac]

Thanks for the update, Sue, but I'm afraid I can't read it! Something
peculiar has happened to the text, and a lot of it is off-screen. I
can read other posts OK, so it's just this.

[Roger Warwick]

Hi Mac,

Are you reading it in your email client? Perhaps you can read it at the groups webpage?

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/travelspain/MuVTomYXo14/discussion

Roger.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Travel Spain" group.
To post to this group, send email to trave...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to travelspain...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/travelspain?hl=en.

[Melinda Young]

Thanks so much for your report. My heart goes out to those who have lost so much!

Melinda

[Mac]

Hello Roger

I'm reading it at
http://groups.google.com/group/travelspain/browse_thread/thread/32e553a26617a35e/4f08fa35d45ff51f#4f08fa35d45ff51f

However, the link you gave wasn't much better, the text being
unwrapped and cutting some words up. I tried to copy it to a text
program, with even worse results. Never had this problem before. The
replies and all other posts are absolutely fine. I'd like to read
this, having being snowed in in Lorca one year, and can visualise the
town.

> >http://groups.google.com/group/travelspain?hl=en.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Roger Warwick]

Hi Mac,

Very strange - yes the post needs some side-scrolling to be read properly, but in my Google Chrome browser the text can be read no problems. In any case, here's the report again pasted into my message below - hopefully this is better for you.

Note that, for example, the word roundabout IS missing the last letter of the word, but it also appeared like that in Sue's original post and, I suspect, was writtern that way in the original report. Anyway, here it is again ....

"Been in & around town today & it's not looking good at all. There was really nothing open whatsoever as they are still inspecting all the buildings.

The Architects & Surveyors have a colour coding scheme for damage;

Green  No danger to occupy; Yellow  The owners can enter to collect their valuables etc, but they may not stay as important building work is needed, 

or the property may be demolished; Black, or in some cases Red  No entry at all because of the danger of immediate collapse.

Nearly 6 out of 10 buildings so far inspected all over town are yellow ,red or black. There's not many green at all.

For those of you who have visited Lorca & entered by coming off the autovia at j591 down to the fountain roundabou

& turned left into the western end of town ( La Viña ), vast areas around here are to be demolished, 

including 2 out of the 4 apartment blocks on the left & possibly a 3rd. 

The opposite side of the road fares slightly better but behind is where the 3 story block collapsed 

( they'll be looking at the construction of this as it wasn't that old ! )  

The situation is no better at the eastern end of town with many buildings marked for demolition. 

Of the 3 mercadonas in town none are open ( The one in La Viña is quite likely to be demolished ), 

the old Eroski centro comercial San Diego is closed although the car park is being used for parking 

& the road by the main exit has an emergency field hospital in it. 

The majority of the main street is closed off . The only supermarket, apart from some smaller ones, that is open is the Eroski Parque Almenara

Where I live in Campillo , quite close to the Parque Almenara, the small village supermarket had people queuing this morning !

The Huerta de la Rueda where the thursday market is held is an emergency centre combined with rescue workers tents & accomodation & emergency food & water supplies.  

There's quite a few around here that are likely to be demolished , including the Convento de religiosas Clarissas which is a building of historical importance & will obviously be rebuilt as it's  a listed building .

No matter where you turned there were people taking what belongings they could carry from their apartments, those that were considered safe to enter, 

& loading them in cars & vans. Others could only look at buildings that are in imminent danger of collapse & no one is going to be allowed to enter & will be demolished along with everything inside.

In all honesty the amount of fachadas cracked, broken , some barely hanging on to buildings in every street you looked down , makes you wonder how they are allowing anyone to be in the town at all. We helped people carrying stuff to their car but they couldn't take everything& what's left they were hoping to be allowed back for.

The scale of the damage I found was far more than I was expecting , & there's not a part of the town that does not have vast amounts of buildings marked for demolition. If this had occurred in the UK I don't think they would be allowing anyone into the whole of the town , due to H&S, it's that bad . This is going to take many, many years to sort out."

[Mac]

Yes, thanks. That's fine now.

 

Mac

[Roger Warwick]

Original report filed here:

http://www.eyeonspain.com/forums/posts-long-13340p1ondak-.htm

and also here:

http://www.andalucia.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26447

(with the roundabout intact!)

On 17 May 2011 11:11, Mac <M...@macwolfelee.plus.com> wrote:

Yes, thanks. That's fine now.

 

Mac

--

[Mac]

Just to add that I switched to Google Chrome, with no better results.
(Shrug)

But my goodness, what a mess! It's correct it's disappeared out of
the UK press, and I haven't looked at The El Pais site for a while.
Do you know if Lorca was the actual epicentre, and were villages
around damaged also? I remember that when we were in Lorca a few
years ago, I wrote here that the whole place seemed to be in the
process of construction and reconstruction, so it's back to square
one. I can't imagine that the poorer houses up by the castle
survived this, and probably aren't insured..........

[sue james]

Hi Mac
There were two tremors and their epicentres were within metres of each
other in the La Vinas (that has a tilda over the n) part of the town in
its North East corner
The first was 4.9 and the next, 1hr 45 mins later, was 5.1 - so
buildings already shaken about were damaged more.
The tremors were very shallow and so hadn't attenuated in the way they
would have done had they been deeper.
The castle is on the west side so those houses might have survived -
especially if they are 1 or 2 storeys.
It seems to be the 5+ storey reinforced concrete apartments that are
most vulnerable.
I think Lorca must have suffered damage in the 2005 La Paca, Murc�a
earthquake but as there were no fatalities then it wasn't ever in the UK
news
Sue
P.S
Sorry for the poor wrapping I did on the original post - it started out
one-line per paragraph and I tried to make it better

[mike james]

I should add that sue did a thesis on the Carbonares Fault Zone which
included a study of the historical earthquakes and a study of
preparedness and earthquake protection etc.
So.....
... its much safer not to ask any more earthquake related questions :-)
mikej