Police officers look at the rubble of a fallen building in Lorca (AP)

People sleep on the streets of Lorca after eight people were killed in two earthquakes (AP)

Thousands of people, fearing more earthquakes, spent the night outside in Lorca (AP)

A boy holds a puppy while people run moments after an earthquake hit the southern Spanish village of Lorca (AP)

A little boy stroking his dog in the street has become the youngest victim of Spain’s worst earthquake in half a century.

Twelve-year-old Raul Guerrero Molina had just walked outside his grandfather’s bar in Lorca when the tremor hit. He was struck by falling masonry, dying in the street beside his pet dog.

The boy’s mother ran outside to save him, and was herself injured by falling bricks.

One witness said: “We heard the mother screaming ‘help me, help me'. But nothing could be done for the son.”

Thousands of Spaniards have now fled the town after two earthquakes killed a total of nine people and caused extensive damage.

Lorca has a population of about 90,000 but was transformed into a ghost town, with a steady stream of cars carrying residents fearful of aftershocks to nearby cities and towns.

Stores, restaurants and schools were closed as the sirens of police vehicles and ambulances filled the air and helicopters hovered overhead. Only a few people walked the streets yesterday after tens of thousands slept outside in makeshift camps, and many of those who remained were poor Latin American immigrants who had nowhere else to go.

Though Spain's government promised to set up a shelter to house 3,500 people, Luis Vazquez was camping in a supermarket car park with his wife, 12-year-old daughter and four other families.

The unemployed farm worker said his apartment was badly damaged and that he would soon “have to ask for help if it continues like this. I can't care for my family without money”.

Thirty people remained in hospital a day after Wednesday’s quakes.

Only a few buildings were destroyed, but the quakes, with magnitudes of 4.4 and 5.2 reported by Spain's geological institute, sent brick building facades and parts of terraces plunging into the streets and caused damage to hundreds of apartment buildings.

Factfile

Spanish experts said the second quake on Wednesday caused the most damage. Its power was said to be more destructive than quakes of a similar magnitude because its epicentre was on the outskirts of Lorca and because it happened at a shallow depth of about 1 km (0.6 miles) below ground. Wednesday’s quakes were the nation's most deadly since 1956.

Belfast Telegraph