Two earthquakes have shaken the tourist holiday island of Mallorca, with terrified residents reporting it feeling 'like an explosion".
The seismic movements happened yesterday evening and were felt in Marratxí, Santa Maria and other towns in the Raiguer region in the north part of the island, as well as in the west.
The shakes were said to have lasted for a few moments, the first happening at 7.40pm and then a stronger one at 9.40pm.
Police said there were no injuries or damage but so many people reported the shakes that their lines were blocked.
Many thought at first that a bomb had gone off in the Balearics but police and firefighters scoured the area and could find no cause.
Locals took to the social networks to report feeling the shocks, with one saying: "The floor of the house has trembled, the second aftershock has been much stronger."
And another said: "What a scare, everything has shaken."
People in the capital also felt the tremors.
Other comments posted on Twitter included: "What is happening in Mallorca in the Marratxi area? Broken glass, strange smell, twice like an earthquake, no one confirms (or denies) seismicity or explosions" and "around 9.30pm, we have noticed something in parts of Mallorca, a rumble, the ground has shaken, everything has shaken but they say it was not an earthquake, what happened?"
The National Geographic Institute originally dismissed any earthquake but later confirmed two tremors of magnitude 2.2 and 2.5 in Deià and Bunyola on the west coast of Mallorca.
The first of these earthquakes was the one in Deià, at 7.46pm and later at 9.36pm, there was another in Bunyola.
The emergency services confirmed it received calls from residents of the Rafal and Vivero neighbourhoods in Palma and from the municipalities of Marratxí, Santa Maria and Bunyola.
In Santa Maria, there was "quite an alarm", according to the fire department.
The National Geographic Institute has already confirmed a magnitude 2.4 earthquake in the Mediterranean Sea between Catalonia and the Balearic Islands last Monday, at 2.30pm, at a depth of eight kilometres.
Mallorca has been hit by earthquakes in the past, with the most serious recent episode in 2003.
An earthquake with an epicentre in Algeria, which reached an intensity of 6.7 on the Richter scale, caused panic in Mallorca.
It was especially noticeable in Palma and in the municipalities of Inca, Manacor, Muro and Sóller.
