Granada residents flee to the Costa Tropical as earthquakes continue to rock inland areas

The 4.8-magnitude earthquake, with its epicentre in Gójar and recorded at 10.37am on Tuesday morning, once again shook the Granada metropolitan area with force, followed by a series of aftershocks. The tremor was felt in areas including Gójar, Armilla, Granada, Alhendín and Padul and was even felt as far afield as Malaga, Jaen, Almeria and Cordoba.

Paqui Valero told IDEAL that she lives with her husband and their two daughters, aged 10 and five, in Loma Verde, a residential area of Albolote. Shortly before 10.40 in the morning, the family felt the tremor as she was sitting at her computer, working while her daughters played in the living room.

“It’s a sound that pierces right through you. It’s not just a tremor; it’s a sound that seems to come from beneath the ground,” she describes. But what struck her most was not the noise, but the sensation caused by the movement: she describes how she felt the soles of her feet sticking to the floor, as if her body didn’t want to react. After the initial shock, the first thing she did was grab her young daughter, who was barefoot and in her pyjamas, and run out into the street.

Standing on the pavement, Paqui watched to see if the neighbours were also coming out of their houses. Some began to do so, and that was when the first aftershock struck; she could feel it herself because there was a neighbour leaning against the wall separating her house from the one next door, and even that wall could be felt shaking.

“They say aftershocks are usually smaller than the main quake, but the sensation you experience there is so intense, the panic is so great, that you don’t want anything stronger to happen. I was absolutely terrified,” she said, still worried. “We stopped working, grabbed the girls and left with just the clothes on our backs for Almuñécar, where my parents live,” she explained.

As they joined the motorway, the family came across a traffic jam which, as they described it, was more like a summer Saturday than a Tuesday. “It was as if we’d all decided to head for the coast at the same time.” A few kilometres from Granada, in Armilla, Isabel Salguero felt the magnitude five earthquake that shook the province while most were asleep.

On Tuesday, Isabel was in her bedroom with her ten-month-old son, who had just fallen asleep, when she saw everything start shaking again. “I started shaking; I was even in tears from the fright,” said Isabel, who described how her partner rushed into the room as soon as the shaking began. What followed was a constant succession of aftershocks.

At first, he thought about staying at home and then decided to check the house and found several cracks, as well as items that had fallen over in the bathroom. When her son woke up, another tremor prompted the family to decide to drive to Calahonda, where Isabel’s parents live.

They hurried down the building’s stairs — avoiding the lift — and saw that pieces of paint had fallen there too and new cracks had appeared. As they left the building, they came across the fire brigade and neighbours gathered in parks and on the streets.

On the coast, the local authorities have already begun to notice the impact of this population shift. Juan Alberto Ferrer, president of Carchuna-Calahonda town hall explained that the earthquake was felt slightly there although it was enough for concern: “As soon as we felt it, we started checking the news and the press, because if the tremor had been felt here, we imagined that it must have been a significant earthquake in Granada. And that’s exactly what it was,” he said.

Ferrer confirms that, with each new aftershock, there has been a growing influx of families who own second homes in the area – particularly in Calahonda and La Perla – and who have chosen to head down to the coast in an effort to move away from the area where the tremors are concentrated.

The authorities are urging caution: “We fully understand the fear and uncertainty this situation is causing, particularly following the earthquakes of the last few days. The important thing right now is to remain calm, follow the recommendations of the emergency services and always keep an eye on official information.”