The Good Folk (and the bad ones) of Granada have been a bit rattled by subterranean rattling after a 3.6º earth tremor yesterday morning. This follows two earliers ones in the week.

The Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN) registered the tectonic tandrum at 00.09h Thursday morning with the  epicentre in Pinos Puente. As this ground grumble took place a mere kilometre down, its affects were keenly felt – had it been much deeper, nobody would have even realised there had been one.

As it was, the 112 emergency number received 41 calls from the city, as well as Santa Fé, Vegas del Genil, Atarfe, Maracena, Armilla, Peligros, Albolote, Las Gabias and Chauchina.

The Junta de Andalucía through its emergency services order a damage report but nothing had undergone structural damage nor anybody hurt.

Social media sprung into life with the normal amount of guasa with one person remarking, “I thought that there wasn’t supposed to be any mobility after curfew!”

As mentioned above, this was the third earth tremor recently with one under Fuente Vaqueros, just five kilometres from the the next one under Chauchina, occurring just two minutes apart: 13.20h and 13.22h Wednesday.

The thing with earthquakes and earth tremors is the relation between intensity and magnitude, which is why a high reading on the Richter Scale (magnitude) doesn’t always translate into a notable affect on the surface. It’s all about how close it is to the surface (intensity). So a high magnitude anywhere down around the 100km in depth mark, won’t have much affect on the surface.

In Pinos Puente back in 1808 there was a series of quakes reaching an intensity level of VIII, which is “running-in-circles-screaming-we’re-going-to-die” intensity.

Anyway, Granada has a lot of seismic activity because it sits on the Euro-Asian fault, hence the existence of the Sierra Nevada, pushed up by one plate sliding over the top of the other.

(News: City & Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)