TheNational Geographic Institutehas published the report on the devastating earthquakes that occurred last May in which it points out that the seismic danger of the area is “high” within the Iberian Peninsula. To carry it out, 13 experts have analyzed different factors, especially geological factors in the region.
“A skinny dog is all fleas”, more than one may be thinking. On May 11, Lorca, Murcia, saw several tremors that killed nine people and caused more than 150 injuries and some 20,000 people had to flee their homes. After months of analysis, the researchers commissioned by the National Geographic Institute, belonging to various Spanish universities, have confirmed that it is a dangerous area where ” the possibility of another earthquake with similar characteristics in the immediate surroundings should not be ruled out .”
According to the report, the danger is explained by ” the location of the population in the trace of the active fault system of Alhama de Murcia, with the occurrence of significant earthquakes in the past .” In addition, they have explained that “together with the damage observed by earthquakes of low-moderate magnitude, it confers a relevant seismic risk to the population.”
Reduce the danger to people
To reduce the danger of earthquakes, experts are resounding. As a recommendation for the future, they have requested a “revision of the regulations” and more specifically a modeling of the active faults with a calculation of the dangerousness, the adjustment of “the spectral forms of the regulations with those deduced from the real records” and the determination of possible resonances depending on the type of soil and structures.
Even so, the experts, despite having classified the danger as high in the context of the Iberian Peninsula, have explained that it is “moderate” in a global context.
