How can an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 kill 8 people in Spain?

I live very close to Lorca and have friends living there.

The problems with Lorca is that it is a vert old Town and has such has number of very old buildings and structures built very close to each other and are not able to withstand tremors.

The earthquake didn't kill anybody - collapsing buildings and falling masonry did.

http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/3149-huge-eart...

Wow! You're an expert?

It depends tremendously on where they are, what the buildings are and many other factors.

5.3 is <<certainly>> strong enough to kill people (since it did, the evidence is quite clear). Any old building is subject to collapse during any kind of an earthquake. Brick facades can fall, cornices, pillars, walls, all sorts of things can collapse. Some of the buildings are probably many hundreds of years old, and built of masonry and before any earthquake building codes existed.

the hypocenter of this earthquake was only about 7kms beyond the surface. In addition, the town, Lorca, have many ancient buildings that do not have antiseismic structures.

It's enough for a heavy object to fall off a shelf and smash someone's head.

I just asked myself that same exact question not that of three hours ago. Maybe their geographical area is prone to a seimic activity.