Load Of Bull

Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Did anyone else notice the mini earthquake last week?  Registerering1.8 on the Richter scale last Friday Santa Pola suffered a tremor that had its epicentre 15km out at see where the Euro/African plates meet.

It didn’t last very long, just a matter of seconds, so as far as I’m concerned that counts under the heading of ‘knee tremblers’

Did anyone else notice the mini earthquake last week?  Registerering1.8 on the Richter scale last Friday Santa Pola suffered a tremor that had its epicentre 15km out at see where the Euro/African plates meet.

It didn’t last very long, just a matter of seconds, so as far as I’m concerned that counts under the heading of ‘knee tremblers’.

I’ve just been reliably informed by my mate John, who knows about these things, that there’s a shortage of bees. What that means (apparently) is that flowers will not get pollinated as much meaning less flowers in the countryside.

It begs the question ‘why?’ though doesn’t it? Can’t they be bothered? Read the rest of this entry »

And it’s all our FAULT

 Dave Bull reports on January’s Earthquake and the future risk of experiencing a major tremor in our region.

So the salesman didn’t mention the little matter that you’ve bought your dream home on an earthquake fault line? Not the best pitch though really is it…’oh you’ll love it here, it’ll evolve in time to make a whole new landscape’ – like Pompeii? According to Dr Roger Musson a boffin at the British Geographical Survey Spain has a fairly high level of seismic activity (that’s earthquakes to me) as a result of the fault line which lies just beyond Tabarca island. ‘yes madam, lovely sea views…and should we get a Tsunami…well, you’ll have a great view…’ Local rumour has it that if you snorkel in the correct spot, just to the south east of the island,  you can see the crack running along the sea bed…

It was only one hundred and seventy years ago that this coast was flattened by a ‘quake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale which had an epicentre 35 km south west of Alicante. That one destroyed pretty much all the towns and villages up and down the coastline including, Santa Pola Guardamar and Torrevieja, says Roger: ‘it is possible for this kind earthquake to happen tomorrow’ (great – I’ve got cinema tickets…) and could happen at a different place along the fault line.

Those of you that felt ‘the earth move’ without the help of a partner on the 27^th of January will have noticed just how incredibly powerful it seemed and that one only registered 2.8 on the scale – I can remember one in 2004 before we printed the very first JD – there was a tremor of a similar size then and I’ve certainly experienced a few smaller ones since.

Having said all that…don’t be too alarmed. Although it is not impossible for us to have a large scale earthquake in the foreseeable future, Roger informs us that we shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about it either, ‘Large earthquakes of the magnitude of the 1829 one do not happen very often – especially in the same area. it is estimated that you will all be safe in your homes for about another five or six hundred years at least’ (by which time us and our houses will have crumbled anyway).

Having spoken to the National Geographic Institute in Madrid we were reassured that the Spanish authorities are well aware of the risks and engineers have included the appropriate strengthening measures in local buildings. However, they did say that if you should notice some seismic activity (nudge, nudge…) it can be reported on their website at www.geo.ign.es/servidor/sismo/sismo.html.

And if it comes….

So what do you do? My advice, should the BIG ONE come anytime soon is to make sure to get everyone safe and once it’s all calmed down, contact your friendly builder – they’re sure to have some filler…