Granada has shaken again. Another intense earthquake, measuring 4.8 in magnitude, shook the Andalusian province this Tuesday, three days after a similar tremor that caused material damage and panic among its inhabitants. The new seismic event, accompanied by several aftershocks, with its epicenter in the municipality of Gójar, has caused cracks and falling cornices, debris, and facade elements, as well as three injuries, according to the emergency services report. The shake was felt in municipalities of Málaga, Córdoba, Jaén, and Almería. Also, much more lightly, in cities such as Ciudad Real, Puertollano, Albacete, or Madrid, according to information provided by the National Geographic Institute.
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The “seismic swarm” affecting Granada occurs in a global context of many large magnitude earthquakes, such as those in Colombia and Venezuela. The year 2026 has already accumulated 11 earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher, according to the United States Geological Survey records. This series of tremors has raised concern and doubts about possible connections and also about whether the Earth, due to the abrupt and unprecedented changes caused by humans – global warming, for example – is now more prone to these phenomena.
For experts, the occurrence of several major earthquakes within a few days or weeks in different countries does not necessarily mean they respond to the “same sequence.” Seismic activity, geologists explain, is part of the planet’s natural dynamics. Approximately 1,300 tremors occur worldwide daily, equivalent to about 500,000 earthquakes each year. However, the vast majority are imperceptible.
In Spain, seismic activity is concentrated in the south and southeast of the peninsula, where the African and Eurasian plates converge. The tremors in Granada, explains Nieves Sánchez Guitián, president of the Official College of Geologists, have nothing to do with those in Colombia, a country that is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer scar that concentrates one of the most active seismic and volcanic regions in the world. “It is within the normal range,” Sánchez states about the two consecutive earthquakes in Andalusia. “A fault does not necessarily release all its energy at once but releases it over a prolonged period and successively,” she details.
It is important to adopt measures such as the Early Warning System to minimize damage
The conclusion of Maurizio Mattesini, professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth Physics and Astrophysics at the Complutense University of Madrid, is that “earthquakes are natural events that cannot be avoided,” but measures can be taken to mitigate the damage they cause. In his view, the devastating tremors in Colombia and Venezuela have demonstrated the importance of Early Seismic Warning Systems (SAST), already operational in countries such as Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, or the United States. “The incorporation of new technologies, such as mobile phone networks used in this case, further expands monitoring and alert possibilities,” he explains in statements collected by Science Media Centre Spain.
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Antonio Aretxabala Díez holds a degree in Geology from the University of Oviedo and a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Zaragoza. He introduces a novel nuance being investigated by many scientists: how relatively small changes in the load on the crust – many of them caused by climate change, thawing, torrential rains, droughts, sea level rise – can be enough to trigger the rupture of a fault close to breaking.
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“There are earthquakes in Granada because there have always been earthquakes. And there are no earthquakes in Valladolid because there never have been earthquakes. This will continue to be the case,” clarifies this expert to avoid alarmism. But he adds that the “radical change in crustal conditions,” caused, for example, by extreme rains or droughts, “not memorized by the crust, can trigger a fault.”
Mont Blanc, a documented case
Last year, scientists from the Swiss Seismological Service studied the seismic sequence of Grandes Jorasses (GJES), in the Mont Blanc massif (Alps), using records from 2006 to 2022 and advanced techniques to detect even very small earthquakes. They discovered that from 2015 – the year that marked the start of very extreme heat waves – a marked seasonal periodicity of earthquakes appeared, a characteristic that was not present with that intensity in previous years.
The authors’ interpretation, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science, is that warming is “progressively modifying the high mountain cryosphere.” The retreat of glaciers and degradation of permafrost are opening and modifying pathways through which water circulates, allowing it to reach fault zones that were previously less connected to the surface. “We now have the first observational evidence that the retreat of the cryosphere caused by climate change can increase seismic hazards in the Alps,” the authors, led by seismologist Verena Simon, conclude.
In this regard, the broadest scientific review published so far reveals that climate change is inaugurating a new discipline, “climate-induced seismicity,” and that the main risk hotspots will be high mountain regions where ice disappears rapidly.
Torrential rains, droughts, thawing, sea level rise… favor seismicity
According to Aretxabala, ecosystem transformations could be altering the timing of when an earthquake occurs, not necessarily its intensity or size. That is, they may advance an event that would probably have happened anyway. “Right now we are experiencing total and very rapid stress both in the crust and in the biosphere. Geological change is brutal at all levels and this has many impacts,” concludes this geologist.
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