'It was like an explosion . . . you could feel it underneath'

Many slept out in Lorca, fearful of returning to earthquake-damaged houses and apartments

IN THE window of a department store on Avenida Juan Carlos I, Lorca’s main boulevard, the mannequins lay tossed about at grotesque angles, their legs in the air and their props – tables, picture frames, pens and paper – scattered in heaps on the floor. Like much of the damaged centre of Lorca yesterday, the display stood just as it was left on Wednesday evening, after the town was struck by one of the region’s most violent earthquakes in generations.

“It was like an explosion. It wasn’t just that the ground shook – you could feel it underneath, just like that,” said Maria José Fernandez, a 34-year-old French teacher who was walking home from the train station when it happened. “Usually you feel it growing, or you know it’s coming. Not this time. It was just like that. An explosion.”

Fernandez saw parts of buildings fall on to the street and heard people shouting. Her only thought was for her mother, alone in her apartment building nearby. “Where I was, there are lots of old buildings, and they fell. Everyone was saying people were trapped, but I couldn’t stay because my mother was here all alone.”

Her mother was unharmed, but their building is all but condemned – deep cracks run along the facade and chunks of wall have fallen off. “I heard people say it’s the old buildings falling. It’s not true. This building is less than 10 years old.”

On a typical weekday afternoon at the start of the tourist season, Avenida Juan Carlos would be bustling with traffic and late shoppers. Yesterday evening, a heavy stillness hung over the place. Thousands of people had slept out the previous night in parks and public spaces, terrified to return to their damaged homes. By yesterday evening, most seemed to have fled the city altogether, leaving parts of the historic old town in a ghostly silence. Engineers in yellow bibs walked among the rubble, marking a red X on buildings that were unsafe to enter. Military personnel carriers patrolled the streets. Here and there, a whole family – invariably with plastic bags containing some salvaged personal effects – would just stand and stare at their cracked or sunken homes.

“My house is okay, but we have moved to Aguilas . I’ve just come back to collect some clothes,” said Gregorio Munoz (24) as he walked to catch a train to the coast with a shoebox under his arm.

People describe having been shunted along the floor when the quake struck, ending up a metre or two from where they had been standing. “It was incredible. I was walking down the street, and suddenly the buildings started to move, everyone started shouting. Incredible,” said Munoz, staring as if in disbelief.

So extensive is the damage to Lorca’s town centre, it’s a wonder that the death toll wasn’t higher than nine. On one street, four cars lay flattened, compressed under the weight of whole sections of wall that fell from the upper floors of an apartment building. The roof of one – a silver sports car – stood less than two feet off the ground.

Almost every shop, restaurant, hotel and home in the centre of Lorca remained closed yesterday. Many of the city’s 90,000 residents were waiting for housing inspectors to give them the green light to re-enter buildings. In the meantime, those who did not have the option of staying with friends or family in the region relied on food distribution points and tents set up by troops in the city.

“We don’t know how long it will take,” Fernandez said, nodding towards her peach-coloured apartment building, an X sprayed on the wall. She thinks they’ll probably have to knock it down and start again.

“Who knows? I’m really in shock. I didn’t show up at work today. I don’t know what I’m going to do . . . It’s crazy.”