5.2-magnitude quake rocks central Spain

A 5.2-magnitude earthquake jolted Madrid and central Spain on Monday, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Spain’s National Geographic Institute initially reported the quake, which hit at 5:16 pm (1616 GMT), as having a magnitude of 5.4 but later revised down the reading.

It put the epicentre of the earthquake at Ossa de Montiel near Albacete, about 220 kilometres (135 miles ) southeast of Madrid. Its depth was given as 10 kilometres (6.2 miles).

Firefighters in Albacete received several calls for information but were not asked to intervene, a local firefighter service spokesman said.

The earthquake caused buildings to shake in Madrid.

“If you felt your house or office shake, it was not just in your building. A small earthquake hit central Spain,” the national police said in a Twitter message.

The last deadly earthquake in Spain occurred on May 11, 2011 when a 5.1-magnitude quake killed nine people and wounded at least 100 in the southeastern city of Lorca.

That quake damaged some 20,000 buildings including many from the 16th and 17th centuries.

It was the deadliest earthquake in Spain since April 19, 1956, when a tremor wrecked buildings and left 11 people dead in Albolote, a town in the southern Spanish province of Granada.