Thursday, August 21, 2008

A call to God

The people of Almoradí congregated in La Plaza de la Constitución yesterday to ask San Emigdio, the saint who protects against earthquakes,  to help them.

The parish of San Andrés organised a "rogativa", preceded by mass.  A thousand people gathered to ask San Emigdio to stop the tremors after the series of seisms in the region. They are especially concerned following the one of 3.4 on the Ritcher scale and a second of 2.7  both with their epicentres in Algorfa.

As part of  the rogativa, San Emigdio  was carried around the town by members of the Civil Defence and even by the Mayor and other Councillors for a brief period.

The town has not experienced a series of tremors like the ones we've had over the last two weeks for 61 years. People are naturally scared. Organising a public oration to ask for help is a tradition which they hope will prevent further tremors from occurring.

In 1829 an earthquake destroyed part of Torrevieja and other towns in the area. In total 389 died, 375 were wounded and 534 houses were destroyed in Torrevieja. They experienced  57 tremors during one single day. Almoradí, Guardamar and Torrevieja were all affected.

Since then, Almoradí has put its trust in  San Emigdio to stop earthquakes by organising traditional rogativas in the month of March. Now, given the circumstances, they have organised a second  rogativa for this year.

1 comment:

jo said...

Just found your blog. Will be back to read more later. No more quakes today?