LORCA, Spain — Thousands of Spaniards fled this small agricultural city Thursday, fearing major aftershocks might level it after the country’s deadliest earthquakes in 55 years killed nine people and caused extensive damage.
Lorca was transformed into a ghost town, with a steady stream of cars carrying many of its 90,000 residents to nearby cities and towns to stay with relatives. Stores, restaurants and schools were closed as the sirens of police vehicles and ambulances filled the air and helicopters hovered overhead.
Gines Navarro waited as firefighters retrieved belongings from his apartment building so he could leave. One neighbor had died, and the staircase in Navarro’s building collapsed.
“We can’t stay here,” Navarro said, his wife sobbing at his side. “We’re going to stay with relatives.”
Only a few people walked the streets. Tens of thousands spent the night outside in makeshift camps, and many of those who remained were poor Latin American immigrants who work the fields and have nowhere else to go.
Thirty people remained hospitalized Thursday, a day after the two quakes, which prompted an estimated 30,000 residents to sleep in cars, cardboard boxes and lawn chairs at makeshift camps in the city about 19 miles inland from Mediterranean Sea beach destinations where little to no damage was reported.
Only a few buildings were destroyed, but the quakes with magnitudes of 4.5 and 5.1, according to figures updated Thursday evening by Spain’s National Geographic Institute, sent brick building facades and parts of terraces plunging into the streets and caused damage to hundreds of apartment buildings.
The Spanish institute said the second, larger quake was followed by 37 aftershocks lasting through Thursday morning.
