Town of Spanish rocks of earthquake killing 10 people

LORCA, Spain- a rare earthquake shaken the ancient city of Lorca Spain Wednesday causing houses to collapse, damaging the historical churches and killing at least 10 people.

5.3 Earthquake magnitude earthquake sent through the tourist region of Murcia.

A part of the front of a church heavily damaged in the small town collapsed hours after the earthquake, missing few television reporter file a direct report.

"The population is frightened and very afraid to return to their homes." "The whole of the Centre of Lorca was severely damaged," Rafael Gonzalez Tovar, delegate of the central Government to Murcia Rafael, said on national radio.

"There are thousands of people very disoriented."

Television images showed shaken families and children gathering in a square in the city, seeking the safety of buildings fallen masonry and covered with rubble streets.

"We were sitting right here and it all started to move, pictures fell from the wall, TV fell (the earthquake) and a then for ages." We watched the window and there was a lot of people running, an ambulance and the police, "a woman told national radio."

The earthquake at 6: 47 local time, according to data from the National Geographic Institute of the Spain. The U.S. Geological Survey, said that the epicenter was 1 km underground.

A mild magnitude 4.5 earthquake had struck the city which is dependent on agriculture, shortly prior.

The last fatal earthquake to hit the Spain was in 1997, when a person was killed, according to the USGS.

Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba will travel to the city on Thursday to examine the damage, Office of the Prime Minister, said.

The Government has mobilized military force for the task of 200 men and women to help secure the area, where about 10,000 people have been affected by the earthquake.

Lorca, which has a population of approximately 90,000 people, back to the Bronze age and probably acquired its name from the Romans. The old part of town consists of a network of narrow streets.

The town is built in the shadow of a fortress and its many architectural features include a Roman military column, the Church of San Francisco and doors from San Antonio and medieval enclosure.

At one point in its history, Lorca was a dangerous border town, caught between the Kingdom of Castile and the Moorish Kingdom of Granada. The Easter Fiesta attracts crowds of the Spanish and foreign tourists.

Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, in Rome, thousands of people stayed away from work or school on Wednesday because of the "earthquake fever" on a prediction of old for several decades that a huge earthquake would destroy Rome on May 11, 2011.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake shook the Central Italy in 2009, killing 295 people, according to the USGS Web site.