Just when you think that nothing else could possibly happen, it does! At 12:30 pm on Saturday, January 23rd as I was taking a much needed and too short of a nap in between my online English classes, the bed began to rock back and forth. I sat up quickly and realized that it wasn’t just my bed, but the walls also seemed to be moving and then something crashed to the ground somewhere in my apartment. Big earthquake number one for this year, magnitude 4.4. I have lived through many earthquakes here in Granada and I remember each and every one of them. The biggest was in 2010, with a magnitude of 6.3, but I don’t remember feeling it as I have felt the quakes this year. I don’t know how to explain why, but this one felt different to me. I felt it in my core and it left my hands trembling. I taught my next four classes with my feet planted firmly on the ground.
Earthquakes are no surprise here since Granada is the most seismic area in Spain. This is where the African and Eurasian tectonic plates meet and have formed many faults. According to experts, these two plates are constantly approximating to each other by 4 to 5 millimetres each year.
3 days pass after that first big quake and the aftershocks continued daily. Some we could feel, some not. Then, on the following Tuesday night I was happily brushing my teeth in our bathroom when I heard my family shriek! I had not felt a thing in our bathroom but when I walked into the hallway I could hear the cracking sounds and see the walls moving once again. We live in on the 7th floor of a 10 story building with 100 apartments in all. It has a big open courtyard in the center which allows for fresh air and easy communication with the neighbors. Since we still have a 10 pm curfew in Granada, all of the neighbors were home and the sound of conversation in the corridors grew and grew. In the next 12 minutes we had 5 more sizeable quakes, ranging from 3.6 to 4.6. Needless to say, these left an uneasy feeling in everyone who felt them! Well, we finally had a reason to forget about COVID for awhile. Two days later an even larger one shook the city and surrounding areas. These were felt as far as the city of Cordoba and even North Africa.
There was no major damage in our neighborhood but the towns that are built right on the faults did suffer damage. The Cathedral, the Saint Jerome Monastery and a part of the Alhambra are also being repaired from damage. Many people left their homes and went to second homes near the coast or to stay with family or friends. There have been 1,600 earthquake registered in Granada since January 23rd. We are still trembling a bit and this past week I was woken up on 3 separate mornings with my bed swaying forward and back. However, they are getting smaller. At least for now. And at least until this very second as I write!!! Literally, this very second another earthquake of magnitude 3.5 just shook our apartment once again. It has almost become normal to hear “earthquake” shouted in our home, just in case somebody didn’t feel it. We all felt this one and so did my other friends in Granada since the messages are rolling in.
I am forever thankful to these friends who make it just a bit more relaxing with their contagious sense of humour. We have laughed together through many earthquakes this month! Let us all keep the laughter going throughout whatever this new year holds for us. Peace and calmness from Granada.
