Granada prepares for a big earthquake with a simulated phone alert on Tuesday

Residents in Santa Fe will get an earthquake warning on their phones at 10.07am on Tuesday November 10, and the Junta de Andalucía is asking them not to panic. It’s a drill, built around a magnitude 6 quake hitting the same Vega de Granada area where a real swarm of tremors began in August.

Santa Fe’s phones will go off at 10.07am

People in Santa Fe’s town centre can expect their mobiles to sound with a Civil Protection alert at 10.07am on Tuesday, sent through ES-Alert, Spain’s emergency system that pushes a warning to every phone in a set area. The message will open with the words “Drill. Civil Protection alert. Earthquake warning” before running through the standard advice for a real quake: take extra care, avoid unnecessary journeys, don’t use lifts and follow official instructions.

Andalucía’s regional emergency agency said the alert is a genuine send but refers to a made-up emergency, so anyone who receives it only needs to read it. Nobody has to leave their home or actually prepare for an earthquake.

Two quakes, three locations and around 200 responders

The exercise, named Respuesta26, imagines two earthquakes striking the Vega de Granada, one of magnitude 4.2 and a far more serious one of magnitude 6. The emergency agency was keen to stress that those figures are just the scenario and not a forecast of anything to come.

Crews will work through the fallout at three sites: Santa Fe’s town centre, a company in Atarfe and the Rules reservoir at Vélez de Benaudalla, where teams will test how they’d respond at a major piece of water infrastructure.

Around 200 people are taking part, according to the Junta, including firefighters, health emergency teams, local police, Civil Protection volunteers, town halls, Granada’s provincial council, universities and several central government bodies. 

Antonio Sanz, the Junta’s first vice-president and regional minister for health and emergencies, has described it as “the biggest exercise ever carried out nationally between all administrations” on earthquakes.

The ground started moving for real in August

The drill lands less than three months after Granada’s seismic series began in mid-August. In the early hours of Saturday August 15, a magnitude 5 quake centred near Alhendín was felt across ten provinces, according to the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN, Spain’s national geographic institute), and another strong tremor followed on Tuesday August 18.

Pieces of façade and cornice came down in parts of the metropolitan area as cracks appeared in older buildings in the Albaicín and the city centre, and some families were moved out of their homes as a precaution while technical teams checked whether they were safe.

Things have calmed down since. The Junta switched off the pre-emergency phase of its seismic risk plan at the end of October after scientific reports showed fewer quakes and less energy being released. 

What the exercise is meant to expose

The Junta said Respuesta26 will test how emergency plans are activated, how command posts are set up, how people and equipment are moved into place and how the different services talk to each other once they’re there. Andalucía’s seismic emergency plan requires practical exercises like this to be held regularly, with the aim of spotting what needs fixing before a real emergency does it for them.

It’s the fifth major regional drill since 2021. Last November’s Respuesta25 rehearsed a tsunami and involved more than 20,000 people, with more than 1,000 responders from 40 organisations. Schools have been getting ready too, as around 800 staff from more than 300 schools attended a seismic risk day in Granada in September. 

Expect a heavy emergency presence from early morning

Vehicles and crews will start moving early on Tuesday morning, and the emergency agency has warned there’ll be plenty of emergency vehicles around Santa Fe, Atarfe, Vélez de Benaudalla and nearby areas. It’s asked anyone who sees them to stay calm. 

So if a phone goes off in Santa Fe at 10.07am, don’t panic, it’s just a simulation.