A Whole Lotta Shakin'

Spain has recently experienced an intense wave of seismic activity, with over 55 earthquakes hitting the province of Granada in a single day. The strongest tremors reached magnitudes of 4.7 and 4.8 on the Richter Scale. The last time Granada was hit by quakes was in 1955.

The Richter Scale, incidentally, is not linear but exponential. Each whole number increase on the scale (e.g., from 4.0 to 5.0) represents a 10-fold increase in the measured wave size. Thus, an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 has waves 100 times larger than a 4.0 magnitude earthquake.

Spain sits directly above the active collision zone of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, exposing several regions to notable seismic hazards. Multiple earthquakes, as just occurred in Granada, are known as a swarm. Very frightening they are, too.

According to the seismic data monitored by the Instituto Geográfico Nacional, Spain’s risk is concentrated along five key fault lines:  Andalucía (Granada, Málaga, Almería), Murcia (Lorca region), the Pyrenees (North Border), Galicia and finally, the Canary Islands.

Google AI grimly lists several major destructive earthquakes and notes that they are rare. The 2011 Lorca Earthquake (Magnitude 5.1), struck at an extremely shallow depth, causing severe building collapses, nine fatalities, and hundreds of injuries in the Murcia region, while the 1884 Andalusian Earthquake (Magnitude 6.5), is one of the most destructive in Spanish history, claiming over 800 lives in Granada and Málaga.

Another major strike occurred in Torrevieja, Alicante, back in 1829, with almost 400 reported dead (a computer mock-up scenario of this same earthquake, now centred around a major residential and tourist area, figures a similar event could produce as much at 20,000 dead today).

Going back, there was the Lisbon earthquake. This, perhaps the worst earthquake in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, is dated November 1st, 1755 (All Saints Day) and is estimated at 7.7 in strength. The tremor ‘claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and opened a profound debate among theologians and philosophers about how God could have allowed such a tragedy’ (it was, after all, a religious holiday). In combination with subsequent fires and a tsunami which reached as far as Huelva and Cádiz, the earthquake almost destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas. Up to 100,000 lives are thought to have been lost on that fateful day.

My own region of Mojácar and Vera was largely destroyed in an earthquake which occurred on the night of November 9th, 1518.

There had been a series of worrisome tremors occurring that year ever since the middle of June, but nothing to match the final convulsion. 

It was a Tuesday, and the earthquake arrived around about midnight. The market-town of Vera was totally destroyed and Mojácar was badly hit. There's an eye-witness account from the then mayor of Mojácar – Iñigo Guevara – who described the collapsed castle in these terms: 'I saw it all fallen in, until the very foundations were visible. There is almost nothing left of the fortress which is so flattened that it appears to have been destroyed by all the artillery of the world'. A report from the time says that almost a third of the eighty homes which made up Mojácar had collapsed. Another report says that the clergy were frightened to give Mass in the church due to its state. It says in the original:  "En la dicha villa de Moxacar no se dize misa a causa que los clerigos no osan entrar a dezir misa a la yglesia porque esta para caerse a causa del terremoto que agora hizo”. A little over a dozen people died in Mojácar because of the earthquake. In Vera, the death-toll reached 150.

Just four years later, in 1522, Almería City was almost completely destroyed in another major quake, with at least 2,500 deaths. Those modest numbers, if ‘una terremoto’ of a similar size visited us today, could easily be much higher.

‘We are waiting’, says one newspaper, ‘…for the next major earthquake in Spain: “The clock is ticking and we’re not prepared”. They can’t put a date on it, but some geologists believe we’re in “extra time” for a repeat of an earthquake as destructive as those that shook the peninsula more than a century ago. They also warn that regulations are outdated and fail to consider the worst-case scenario’.

Which reminds me, next week I shall be in Granada, staying with my in-laws. I doubt I’ll get much sleep.

Partytime

 

August 15th was the national Assumption holiday. A good excuse for a party if ever there was one. The Assumption itself is a little obscure – it’s the belief that the Virgin Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her life without her body decaying on Earth. The rest of us can only raise a glass to this excellent news, so we do.

Many cities and towns in Spain have their fiestas patronales in the second half of August, coincidentally when the holidays are at their height. Málaga has its fair along with Bilbao, Vitoria, San Sebastián, Almería and many others. If the festival is based on a saint’s day, which it is, it would be churlish of the City Fathers not to spread it across a couple of days, or a week maybe – or perhaps even longer. A quick procession and a Holy Mass by all means, but then some fireworks, speechifying, a mini-marathon, some pop concerts, exhibitions, horse and carriage stuff, perhaps some bullfights, a magic show for the kids, late night dancing and plenty of bunting in the main square.

Seriously though, you can’t fit that all into one day, can you?

There are some standout festivals going on, including the one where everyone throws tomatoes at each other in Buñuel (Valencia) on August 26, the Festa Major de Gràcia in Barcelona (current) and our own modest fiesta here in my pueblo in celebration of San Agustín de Hipona (who no one has ever heard of) on August 28th. Now, that’s a Friday, so we have lengthened the revelry (jolgorio in Spanish) to cover the weekend, plus the two preceding days, giving us in all five sublime days and noisy nights.

This sees us comfortably through to August 30th, which in happier times would mean the end of the hols and the beaches returned once again for those of us who consider ourselves residents.

September, unfortunately, no longer means ‘they’ve all gone, three cheers!’. But the weather at least is slightly cooler, so we may be feeling a fraction more generous towards our visitors.

You can’t have a santo in a Spanish pueblo without a santa – usually but not always la Virgen María. Our own – celebrated (a trifle less noisily than the August thrash) – is la Virgen del Rosario on October 7th (where the Spanish army prayed for victory in 1571 to the Virgen María against the Ottomans). There’ll be a picnic (una romería) in the countryside plus some events down at the Barrio de la Fuente.

A local fiesta should, and I think that the clue is in the name, be for the local folk. These days, there are so many visitors (all clutching their telephone cameras) that we tend to get pushed to the back. The free paella gets gobbled by people from Madrid or München, the tin-bar in the square has run out of sausages, the carpark is full and I must walk half a mile to get to the bus stop. The local businesses (including the disturbingly large number of souvenir shops – let me ask you this: when was the last time you bought a keepsake in your own pueblo?) – are making out like bandits, and meanwhile the cops are stopping the live music in the foreign bars along the beach at 7.30pm.

In short, the fiestas are a time for dressing up, eating sticky buns (with care), dancing in the village square and taking lots of selfies.

Once it’s over, there are others not so far away. You’ll hear their thunder-flashes at night.

I’ll have to check my engagements, but our local market town of Vera has theirs (San Cleofás – never heard of him either), in just a few weeks from now.

A Roof Over My Head

There apparently aren’t enough homes in Spain for all of us, and thus we read the scare-stories of okupas, frustrated house-hunters, poor souls renting (or even buying) just a single room, or living in a caravan or a car, or I suppose, slumped on a park-bench.

We also know that there are plenty of empty houses, abandoned blocks, rotting urbanisations and so on, but not perhaps located precisely where we want to live, or even if we did, the town hall, the regional authority, the owner or even perhaps some squabbling inheritors have ruled that the place must stay empty for whatever reason there might be. Usually of course to do with greed.

Some owners of a perfectly usable block of apartments – it happens – might leave them empty or unsold for speculative reasons. Sooner or later, thanks to demand, the price will go up.

There might be empty business premises which could be turned into residential housing. Sometimes, although rarely, they are. Many downstairs spaces were originally planned as shops or bars or hairdressers – but no one came forward, and so they got bricked up and covered with graffiti.

The main problem in Spain – or anywhere else – is location. An ambitious young lawyer or accountant wants to live in Madrid, not in Sigüenza (as beautiful as it may be). A dentist or a banker would prefer Barcelona to Cuenca and the best discotheques, restaurants and museums are not necessarily in Teruel.

Or Tossa del Mar. Good beaches though.

But now there’s a new system coming from the USA, which never misses a trick when it comes to screwing money out of the less fortunate. You may live in the sticks to save on city-rentals and practice teleworking. Hunched over the computer each day while wearing nothing more than a tee-shirt with the cat and a cold Martini both waiting for your undivided attention. Rather like I’m doing now.

It seems that clever landlords are charging extra rent if you do that. An apartment is just for sleeping in, showering and watching Netflix. Working from home is ratable.

There are more homes in Spain than we like to imagine, although not all are located within the boundary of the M-30. Google says there are 27 million dwellings and 49,700,000 people living here: which works out at a little less than two people to a home. Whether this figure refers only to functional residences or anything which vaguely has a roof is unclear. 

There are those, of course, who have two homes. The usual residence in – probably – the city and then a second one, that has either belonged to the family for ages and can be found in some forgotten pueblo and is availed of during August, or perhaps an apartment near the beach. The second option being preferable to the young’uns.

I buck the trend by living alone. You can blame me for all the panic stories listed at the beginning of this essay. But, while I’m alone, I’m not alone, since there are 5.6 million of us. A whopping 28% of all dwellings in the country are unipersonal. Shopping for one.

Well, we could get together, maybe on a Facebook chat, and share and loosen up some property. However, says Infobae, ‘A study suggests that splitting an apartment with people with whom you don't share a romantic relationship has worse consequences for mental health than living alone and not having a partner’.

Right now, what with all the visitors making whoopie and making it largely impossible to go out either for supplies or for a gargle, I’ve been staying home and reading.

There are just a few more weeks of this summer frolic to go. Then, once my hibernation is over (the correct word apparently is ‘aestivation’), and the fiestas patronales just a noisy memory and a sticky taste, and when I can park the car in the village rather than having to take the bus, then I'll be able to go out once again and see my friends. Come the end of the evening, I'll head for home, glad to be living alone with my books and my cat.