[Wu]

nope

[thefactor]

Heavily populated?

[SouthernClaire]

Just caught the headline on MSN breaking news, but it’s not “clickable”. Will try to catch the news article asap.

[seton89]

Rome was on the schedule for today.

[SouthernClaire]

Still not much news coming out yet, but here’s a link:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/05/spain-rocked-by-2-strong-earthquakes-fatalities-and-major-damage-feared/1?csp=34

[Viiksitimali]

http://www.rtve.es/noticias/directo-la-1/

[Red Badger]

Hey! It was supposed to hit ROME, Not SPAIN!.........................

[Joe 6-pack]

This ought to give you pause if you're on the Atlantic Coast...

"...Some researchers believe that a large landslide in the Canary Islands could generate a tsunami with basin-wide impact. Faults on the southwest side of La Palma Island associated with Cumbre Vieja Volcano could be the detachment surface of a mega-landslide..."

[yorkie]

Woa! I wasn’t aware that Spain was on a fault line. Prayers up!

[PA Engineer]

Wow. I was in Lorca (fortress ruins) as a tourist last October. There are many loading bearing, stone wall structures in and around Lorca. This is very sad.

[Errant]

This is a relatively minor earthquake. That said, magnitude 5+ earthquakes have been on the rise in recent years especially for 2011.

The below just in the last few days:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

A chart I put together using data from USGS. The column for 2011 is projected based on the number of 5+ earthquakes in the first quarter of this year. I would expect a significant drop in the number projected for 2011 but I am starting to wonder about it!

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Coincidence? I think not!

[SVTCobra03]

Actually this is the one to worry about:

“But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean.

What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_tsunami.shtml

[AuH2ORepublican]

Prayers up.

[Rio]

Is it tomorrow over there yet?

LINK

[Scanian]

Was Malaga hit?