Villagers in the mountain village of Lújar had a hell of a fright when large boulders and earth rolled down off the Tajo de la Señorica yesterday, damaging houses.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt although two dogs were killed. When we say large boulders, there was one weighing approximately 1,500 kilos which partially demolished the house of a 71-year-old man – the house had been on sale.

Now everybody is worried that more could come down, which is why the Provincial Council is going to carry out emergency stabilisation work on the hillside.

This administration has advised locals living in houses under the overhang (bluff) to move out temporarily and experts have calculated that 200,000 euros are needed to carry out the necessary work.

The boulder had come in through an upstairs window and smashed through the floor. Fortunately, there was nobody in it at the time.

The said work will be a case of pinning the rock face with steel netting (the same as can be seen on many unstable cuttings along roadsides). This specialised steel netting costs around a thousand euros per square metre and they calculated that they will need around 200 sq/m of it.

Mayor José Antonio González explained that there has never been a rockfall like this before on this hillside, which lies behind houses on the upper end of the village.

The rockslide also covered the main road to the village in the early afternoon, but heavy machinery was able to clear it not long after nightfall.

It is believed that the recent rain and frost followed by high winds weakened the hillside

(News/Noticias: Lujar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photos: Stills from Ideal video)