HE earthquake from morocco Although it is known to be prone to seismic movements, its density in a region that was not thought to have been the scene of such a large earthquake was surprising. With Spain so close to the affected area, could an earthquake of similar proportions occur here?
As Samuel Biener explains on the Meteored portal, the Iberian Peninsula is located in the contact zone between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates. This collision zone, which extends from the Atlantic (south of Portugal) and across the Mediterranean to Italy, Greece and Turkey, is responsible for the seismicity recorded in southern Spain and Portugal.
Provinces due to their proximity to tectonic contact areas Granada, Almería, Malaga, Murcia and Alicante According to the National Geographic Institute (IGN), these are the areas most likely to experience earthquakes.
Apart from this, there are other factors that complicate the picture, such as microplates and active faults hundreds of kilometers away from this collision zone: This causes seismicity in other parts of the Peninsula, e.g. In the Pyrenees and Galicia.
“Because in the Western Mediterranean The collision between tectonic plates occurs more slowly and more intensely than, for example, in the Eastern Mediterranean. Large seismic events are less frequent,” explains Samuel Biener.
Now This does not mean that a major earthquake will not occur. In our country, Morocco is not a region where major earthquakes are expected, but one of them occurred recently with the consequences of death and destruction.
What happened in Morocco “is a wake-up call for us not to forget that we live in an earthquake-prone area,” he adds.
According to seismologists from the National Geographic Institute in statements made to various media “Impossible to predict” They are investigating whether an incident similar to the one in Marrakesh could happen in Spain, so they are asking for extreme precautions and necessary preventive measures to be taken.
Latest major earthquakes in Spain
The last major earthquake that resulted in death in Spain Lorca (Murcia) on 11 May 2011It has a magnitude of 5.1 and is only 2 kilometers deep. It caused nine deaths when a building collapsed and cornices fell to the ground.
Eleven more people had previously died in the towns in 1956. Albolote and Atarfe (Granada)Buildings destroyed in the 5.0 magnitude earthquake.
More intense earthquakes greater than magnitude 7 also occurred in the 20th century, but due to a number of conditions, including the depth of their epicenters, they did not have the devastating consequences of other earthquakes of more shallow origin.
status The Canary Islands are differentBecause the archipelago is not located at the meeting point between tectonic plates. Earthquakes that may occur here may be of volcanic origin, but it is not a place where there is evidence of such events, at least on a large scale. The largest earthquake ever recorded occurred in Tenerife in May 1989 and had a magnitude of 5.3 degrees.
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