An earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale was registered by the National Geographic Institute (IGN) in Spain at 14.17 on Tuesday at noon on 6 October. The epicentre was nine kilometres from the provincial capital of Málaga, at a depth of some 80 kilometres in the sea.
The earthquake was felt in Malaga itself, but also in Torremolinos, Rincón de la Victoria and Alhaurín de la Torre. The IGN has published a questionnaire for citizens who felt the earthquake. The questionnaire asks people to tell what they were doing when the earth shook, how they perceived the earthquake, whether objects moved or how they reacted.
The IGN collects such data after earthquakes like that in Málaga, in order to constantly improve the warning systems for the population in Spain. The Institute also hopes to gain insights into the extent of the damage caused by earthquakes of varying magnitude. Incidentally, the first questionnaire of this kind was developed by the authorities after the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755, when up to 100,000 people died on the Iberian Peninsula.
This is not the first earthquake on the Costa del Sol in recent times: four earthquakes were recorded in the area around Malaga last week, and twelve in the whole of September. The strongest of these, according to the IGN, was the earthquake on Sunday 4 September, with a magnitude of 4.1.
