There was a sizeable earth tremor off the coast of Almeria (5.5 degrees of magnitude) which was felt in Almería, Granada, Málaga and Jaén, as well as outside Andalucia in Murcia, Alicante and Albacete.

This was followed by a series of smaller ones, like the one with the epicentre below Salobreña that registered 1.6 on the Richter Scale.

The 5.5 tremor, which happened at 05:13h GMT (07.13h local time) was followed by a string of smaller tremors in the same area, as can be seen from the accompanying image.

The strongest secondary seismic movement registered 3.4º less than two minutes later, followed by a further 17 shocks of between 2.7 and 1.8 on the Richter Scale in the next four hours.

Probably the reason that the first one was so widely felt was because its epicentre was only two kilometres down; the closer to the surface, the more movement so that a relatively small one closer to the surface can be felt more than a larger one ten miles down, for example.

To emphasise this, the 5.5º one was felt in nearly 300 municipalities in Andalucia and the Levante (eastern seaboard).

(News: Salobreña/Nijar, Costa Tropical, Costa de Almería, Granada/Almeria, Andalucia)

Keywords: Earth Tremor, Seismagraph, Richter Scale, Depth, Epicentre

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