Hundreds queue for food after Spanish earthquake

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2:13 a.m. CDT, May 12, 2011

LORCA, Spain (Reuters) - Hundreds of people queued for food Thursday from emergency workers in the Spanish town of Lorca, prevented from returning to their homes damaged by an unusually strong earthquake that killed eight people.

The mayor of the southern town, Francisco Jodar, told reporters as many as a third of Lorca's 90,000 residents spent the night outdoors after Wednesday's 5.3 magnitude earthquake.

The number of fatalities was revised down from an earlier report of 10.

"We spent the night outside here in the square. The emergency workers are giving us food and blankets. We're not allowed to go into our apartment until an engineer comes and looks at our building," said Edgar Rosales, 38, an Ecuadorian immigrant.

Rosales said the earthquake jolted groceries off the shelves of his Latin American food store and had hit his daughters.

"The important thing is that we're all okay. We're all here together now," Rosales said.

The ruling Socialist party and the center-right opposition Popular Party suspended campaign rallies throughout Spain for the May 22 regional and local elections out of respect for the victims of the earthquake.

Masonry and rubble filled some streets in Lorca, which dates back to Roman times and also has some medieval structures. Many cars were crushed by the quake that struck at 6:46 p.m. (1646 GMT).

A military task force of 200 troops was sent to the area to provide aid and cordon off dangerous buildings. Part of the front of a badly damaged church collapsed hours after the quake and other buildings were considered unstable.

Earthquakes causing extensive damage and fatalities are rare in Spain although the south of the country has extensive faultlines. The U.S. Geological Survey registered one dead in a 1997 earthquake.

In 1969 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed 19 people in the southern town of Huelva, according to Spain's National Geographic Institute.

(Writing by Fiona Ortiz; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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