The Spanish town of Lorca was shaken by an earthquake of 3.7 on the Richter Scale in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The quake, which was at first thought to have measured 4.3 on the scale, but which was later lowered to 3.7 by the Spanish National Institute of Geography, struck at 04:27 local time.

The epicenter of the quake was 11 meters below the surface, close to the village of La Paca, which is to the north of Lorca itself and it had been preceded by a smaller tremor of 2.7 on the Richter Scale, while there was also a small aftershock of 1.6.

Although there have not been any reported casualties and no serious damage has been reported, the quake caused numerous calls to the emergency services, as local residents were given a reminder of the recent history of their town.

May 11, 2011 saw Lorca, which is a town of around 80,000 inhabitants in the province of Murcia in the south east of Spain, hit by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter Scale just before 7pm.

The epicenter of the quake was just 2.5 kilometers from the city and the fact it was just one kilometer below the surface resulted in considerable earth movement and ground shaking, which led to 9 deaths, nearly all of them caused by falling masonry, and over 400 injuries as well as widespread damage to buildings throughout the town.

The Spanish government drafted in 340 members of the Military Emergency Unit to help deal with the emergency, while many local residents were forced to campo out and seek alternative accommodation for fear of further tremors

Investigations in 2012 showed that deep water wells in the area could have contributed to causing the quake as they had caused the water level to drop, creating extra stress on the shallow fault.

However, it should also be noted that the south of Spain is the scene of considerable low level seismic activity due to its location close to the plate boundary between the Eurasian and African plates. Endi

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