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5.4-magnitude quake rocks central Spain

The quake struck at 5.16pm (1616 GMT) with its epicentre at Ossa de Montiel near Albacete, about 220 kilometres southeast of Madrid.

A 5.4-magnitude earthquake jolted Madrid and central Spain on Monday, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake struck at 5.16pm (1616 GMT) with its epicentre at Ossa de Montiel near Albacete, about 220 kilometres southeast of Madrid, Spain’s National Geographic Institute said.

Its depth was given as 14 kilometres.

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

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, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, 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.