Chipiona is Spain’s first ‘tsunami ready’ community. Photograph: Julián Rojas/The Guardian Even on a wet, wintry day in Málaga, the Mediterranean looks benign. But only 25 miles (40km) south-west of its port, where half a million tourists disembark from cruise ships into the Costa del Sol each year, lies a system of tectonic plates and faults that fracture the seabed between Spain and north Africa. Earthquakes are routine here.