Spain Earthquake Pictures: Buildings Fall, Dozens Hurt

Spain Earthquakes' Human Toll

Photograph by Israel Sanchez, European Pressphoto Agency

Amid the rubble of two earthquakes in Spain Wednesday, a police officer (right) tries to console the daughter (center) of one of at least ten people killed during the natural disaster. Striking near the southeastern town of Lorca (map), the Spain earthquakes injured dozens, damaged historic buildings, and fractured highways, according to officials cited by the Associated Press.

The second, more powerful earthquake was a magnitude 5.3 temblor that struck at 6:47 p.m. local time, U.S. National Earthquake Information Center seismologist John Bellini told the AP. It came roughly two hours after a magnitude 4.5 quake rocked the town of 91,000. Both earthquakes originated from the same approximately six-mile-deep (ten-kilometer-deep) spot outside Lorca.

Situated near the boundary of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, the Lorca area is no stranger to earthquakes, though most are too faint to detect without seismological tools, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.