A POWERFUL earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4 struck southern Spain this morning.

The quake rattled towns across seven provinces, startling sleeping residents and collapsing parts of ceilings in an airport and a car showroom.

The strong quake was recorded by Spain’s National Geographic (IGN) Institute at 7.13am.

It struck at a depth of almost two miles below sea level, off the coast of Almería in southeast Spain.

The quake shook hundreds of towns and villages across Andalusia and the Levante, with the strongest impact reported in 17 municipalities in Almeria.

Granada, Malaga and Jaen, along with Murcia, Alicante and Albacete in the east, were among the hardest-hit provinces, reports Spanish newspaper El País.

In Almeria Airport, part of the ceiling of a cafe inside the departure lounge collapsed, with tiles tumbling down.

A worker told local outlets: “We heard some noises one after the other and then a loud bang and a great cloud of dust appeared.

“It was a real scare for us.

“There were airport workers having their first coffee of the day but luckily no one was injured.”

There are no reports of injuries but the area where the damage occurred has been cordoned off.

The ceiling of a Toyota showroom in Huercal de Almeria – a 10-minute drive from the provincial capital Almeria – also suffered damage.

Witnesses described their houses shaking and windows rattling.

“I was asleep and I’ve woken up to the bed shaking,” said one resident of Bédar, which is located about 37 miles from the quake’s epicentre.

“There was a loud rumbling and the whole house shook,” said another, living in Tabernas.

A resident of Torre del Mar, 37 miles from the epicentre, said: “In the last 10 years this was the strongest I have felt.

“The building shook strongly for a few seconds and triggered the earthquake alert on my phone. Woke me up with a startle!”

A Murcia local said: “I was in bed. It woke me up because the bed was moving back and forth, the light on the ceiling was swinging and my wardrobe doors were opening and closing. Probably lasted around 10 seconds.”

Video footage taken by another person who felt the tremors showed a ceiling lampshade rocking back and forth in an apartment.

One person wrote on Facebook: “Felt this way up in Granada, where I woke up early today wondering why my bed was rocking back and forth.”

Another person posted on an expat group, writing: “Who felt the earth quake this morning at 7.10am? It was the biggest one in 23 years in Almeria.”

Emergency services in Andalusia received 25 calls from the public – 20 from Almeria, four from Granada and one from Jaen, El País reports.

The tremor reached an intensity of IV or V on the European Macroseismic Scale, meaning “widely observed” to “strong”, according to the IGN.

In such cases, the shaking is clearly felt indoors, hanging objects swing noticeably and people may be woken from sleep.

The quake’s shallow depth meant it was felt more strongly in nearby areas, the Institute added.

A mobile alert was reportedly sent to residents in Almería and Granada, warning of the quake.

The alert advised on what to do after an earthquake, including wearing shoes before moving around – even indoors – and checking for gas leaks.

The message also warned that aftershocks were possible.

While this quake was more powerful than the one that struck Lorca in Murcia in 2011, which killed nine people, the destruction was less severe because it did not hit on land.

Instead, it occurred below sea level, about 20 miles off the coast near the town of Nijar in Almeria.

Earthquake expert Javier Fernandez Fraile said today: “If it had been near a city and closer to the surface it could have been far more destructive.”

The Mediterranean area – along the coasts of Spain, Morocco, Algeria and Italy – lies on a fault line, causing minor earthquakes to happen frequently.

The largest quake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, in southern Chile, on May 22, 1960.

With a magnitude of 9.5, it lasted for 10 minutes and triggered a tsunami.

Between 1,000 and 6,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the disaster.

The deadliest and second largest earthquake ever recorded struck the island of Sumatra in Indonesia in 2004.

The 9.3-magnitude quake triggered a catastrophic tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which is believed to have killed over 280,000 people in several countries.