Rip currents

Again the sea has claimed the lives of bathers along the coast, over the weekend there were two people drowned one at Guardamar and one at La Marina there were also several people who got into difficulties and were rescued or managed to reach the shore. I witnessed one person being swept out to sea on a strong rip current, after initial panic they swam parallel to the beach and escaped the current but were very exhausted by the time rescuers reached them to help them ashore. After the spring gales the seabed at Guardamar now varies in depth dramatically and there are many sandbars and deep hollows, when the sea gets slightly rougher the waves pour over the sandbars and the water rushes out through the deeper channels this is where the danger is as the water can be moving at up to 2.5 metres a second and in a minute you can be up to 100 metres off the seashore, once the race of water gets to the end of the channel the current dissipates and by swimming to one side of the rip and then towards the beach you can reach the safety of the shore - that is if you are not exhausted by this time.
The Cruz Roja Lifeguards do nor start their patrols untill June, and it is obvious that the patrols are needed earlier in the season.

Lorca Earthquake

Around 17:00 on May 11th there was a small shallow earthquake at Lorca Murcia, 2 hours later a stronger one of 5.2 magnitude which has caused substantial damage to the town and latest reports of 9 fatalities and 327 injuries, 3 of them serious, 420 military personnel are helping the local emergency services with Search and Rescue and any other help needed, around 40% of the buildings have been damaged in the town,
A team of 150 technicians have performed inspection tasks in Lorca and have been responsible for cataloging the damaged properties 17% from those inspected received a red circle. A red circle means access is dangerous and refused. 44% had a green circle marking (safe to enter) and the remaining 39% received a yellow circle, allowing only access to collect furniture and other belonging.
3500 beds have been made available for victims of the earthquake.
Emma and family passed through Lorca at around 16:30 on a return trip from Cordoba, and nearly stopped for a meal but luckily decided against it.
We were in Blanca (around 100kms from Lorca) at the time and did not now anything about the event until around 22:00 as we did not have the radio or TV on. We felt no ground tremors at all.

On the Move

All is looking good now for our house purchase in Blanca, Murcia, With completion scheduled for next week, we will not be be moving in untill the end of the month as Emma, Warwick and the grandchildren are here, there are several jobs to do and we have to make sure the internet is connected and working efficiently.
We will still be visiting the Formentera area as we have good friends there, who we want to see on a regular basis.
The Blog will continue as usual but of course the topics will be more related to around Blanca and Murcia than Formentera and Guardamar.
Last week we had our picture in The Round Town News as Mary was the winner second prize in a writing competition, the prize was a weekend in Madrid for two, which are looking forward to taking later in the year.