The Zaidín is once again one of the proper names of the seismic crisis that Granada is experiencing. The succession of earthquakes has left damage in buildings, cracks, preventive evacuations, and neighbors who have chosen to spend the night outside their homes.
It is neither a small nor a homogeneous neighborhood. The Zaidín brings together different areas and residential developments that have been built over decades and has more than 43,000 inhabitants, according to the most recent municipal documentation about the city. Its demographic weight makes it one of the large neighborhoods of Granada.
A neighborhood born to respond to the growth of Granada
The current configuration of the Zaidín has a lot to do with the expansion of Granada during the second half of the 20th century. Documentation from the City Council places the development of the new neighborhood in the 1950s, when housing developments began to be built to meet the accommodation needs of a growing population.
The City Council itself has highlighted the urban and social evolution of the Zaidín and areas like Santa Adela, whose transformation is part of the recent history of Granada.
Its own extension also explains the diversity of the neighborhood. In the Zaidín, areas of older buildings coexist with later developments and large city facilities. Municipal planning places it among the urban areas with the highest population concentration in Granada.
From the Sports Palace to Santa Adela
For many people from Granada, talking about the Zaidín is also talking about the surroundings of the Sports Palace, the Nuevo Los Cármenes stadium, and the large avenues in the south of the city. The municipal tourist page itself identifies the Zaidín-Vergeles-Sports Palace area as one of the characteristic zones of Granada.
But the neighborhood also includes areas with a very different urban history. Santa Adela, for example, is linked to some of the first residential developments and has been the protagonist of various transformation and renewal processes, with a prominent role of neighborhood associations in building the identity of the neighborhood.
This combination of areas and types of housing helps to understand why the consequences of the earthquakes have not been the same in all points. Inspections and incidents must be analyzed building by building, without automatically extrapolating the damages from one street to the entirety of a neighborhood where tens of thousands of people live. Precisely for this reason, the image that emerges from Zaidín combines buildings and businesses that maintain their activity with other sealed entrances or homes whose occupants have decided to temporarily abandon the property.
Cracks, evacuations, and neighbors who do not want to return home
In recent hours, the impact of the earthquakes has been felt in different points of Zaidín. A report published by Ideal collects testimonies from neighbors of Santa Adela, the Virgen de la Luz square, the Dílar avenue, Don Bosco, and other points of the neighborhood that describe cracks, landslides, and the fear of remaining in their homes after the aftershocks.
"It makes you sad because it is a neighborhood with a lot of life, and right now you don't see anyone. They are all scared and hiding," summarizes one of the neighbors consulted by the Granada newspaper. Others recount that they have spent the night in cars, parks, or second homes due to the uncertainty caused by the new tremors.
The situation of each property depends on the specific damages detected and the inspections carried out after the earthquakes.
A neighborhood with more population than many Spanish cities
The latest Integrated Action Plan from the City Council of Granada estimates the population of Zaidín at 43,850 inhabitants, which represents almost one-fifth of the population of the capital included in that document. The neighborhood occupies 2.52 square kilometers and is part, along with Norte and Chana, of one of the major urban action areas defined by the City Council.
This dimension turns any incident in the neighborhood into a potential problem for thousands of people. An earthquake that affects several blocks, businesses, or streets does not occur in an isolated area, but in one of the main residential spaces in southern Granada.
The Zaidín, built over decades and now turned into one of the most populated neighborhoods in the city, now faces the consequences of a seismic crisis that has altered the daily life of its neighbors for several days. The evolution of the inspections and the aftershocks will determine how far the impact ultimately reaches in an area whose history is linked, precisely, to the growth and urban transformation of Granada.