August was very hot, with loads of calima, lovely baths and Feria in town. A lot going on!
Most Scandinavians spend summer back home. “Spain-heat is on here as well!” someone wrote to me from the Swedish west-coast archipelago. The Mediterranean Sea is the warmest ever this year. Around Mallorca the record 33 degrees was six degrees over average. Good for swimming but bad for marine ecosystems.
And the wildfires are getting worse, in Spain and in many places in Southern Europe. Around 90% are man-made. Sometimes provoked unwillingly by careless dealings with fires, cigarettes, glass or similar garbage left in nature, and else. Sometimes actually lit by people with illegal intentions. Combined with climate change – extreme heat peaks and lack of water -, changed patterns of forest management and animal breathing, this is lethal.
Please be careful and report anything you see that could start a fire to the authorities.
On top of the fires we have had several ‘earthquakes’ here in the Granada province in August. As someone who worked with disaster management and risk reduction, the impact of the many tremors was minor and the response seems timely and adequate.
Granada is situated near the boundary of the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, making it one of the most seismically active regions in Spain. Minor ‘earthquakes’ are common and mostly very shallow and therefore less destructive. Seismic activity is registered on a daily basis.
Recent significant earthquakes near Granada (according to source: https://earthquakelist.org/spain/andalusia/granada/):
Compare this to the strength and intensity along the “Pacific Ring of Fire” with quakes in Chile and Japan (with most earthquake engineers per capita globally) and limited destruction despite big earthquakes (and many other places along these tectonic plates) or most recently Indonesia, Venezuela and Colombia, where the victims can be counted in the thousands and major infrastructure losses.
We used to say: disasters are not natural (some hazards are), it is our exposure and creation of vulnerability that make it a disaster.
What worries me is how building traditions here use very little armour and anti-seismic building techniques … still, most built -up environments seem to withstand all the seismic activity in the region.
We might want to invite Civil Protection to our Los Nordicos meetings, to inform us better about how to be prepared and reduce risks – and eventually get engaged in preparedness work
Meanwhile, we had the opportunity to participate in a a preview Flamenco show, an intimate and passionate performance, at the first genuine Tablao opening in September in Almuñécar, at Arenas bar, los Bajos del Altillo. Something to look forward to! Book here: www.arenaflamenco.com
Los Nordicos start up our activities towards the end of September, with our first weekly Wednesday meeting at Mesón Gala, Almuñécar, on October the 7th. Check out our program here: www.losnordicos.com
Wishing for peace and less warmongering politicians and leaders around the world. Listening to the news this morning, when the Trump-administration is sanctioning the International Criminal Court (again), for their work against war-crimes. So sad.
Stay safe at the Costa Tropical.
(News/Feature: Los Nórdicos)
Keywords: Earthquakes, Hill Fires, Protección Civil, Mediterranean Sea
news, andalucia, granada, costa tropical, almunecar, earthquakes, hill fires, protección civil, mediterranean sea