Navarra has registered almost 400 earthquakes since the beginning of 2013. The media have been focused on the seismic phenomenon since the beginning of the so-called year of earthquakes and by now practically the whole population knows that it is included in the third most seismic area of Iberia; everyone talks about the Pamplona fault. Many of us have experienced the impact of some of the three strongest earthquakes of March 21 and 23 or that of April 20. In total, in the southern neighborhoods and in the affected localities more than thirty have been well felt.

But have we really learned anything? Has it served to strengthen us? Has it had the scientific and not only media interest it deserves? Seismicity is not something exotic with which to pass the time or to fill local newspaper articles, to rejoice in an uncontrollable phenomenon or to be surprised by its power. Clearly, there have been some very interesting parliamentary initiatives such as revising urban planning codes, seismic pedagogy and technical building inspections, but none have yet materialized. The promises of a serious research have been forgotten. It has not even been possible to obtain explicit official support to study the hydroseismic phenomenon, despite the fact that the evidence is clear in a year without historical precedent in terms of rainfall. There are still those who resist having to change their criteria and inherited clichés, the consolidated paradigms weigh like a burden in the face of new observations; at most they can be seen as enigmatic, but the spirit of comfort that accompanies us is so lacking in courage and daring as to let such an interesting and disturbing episode pass us by at the same time.

The Territorial Civil Protection Plan of Navarra (Platena), in the framework competence that the legal system attributed to the Comunidad Foral, specifically foresaw the need to elaborate an autonomic plan to face the risk derived from earthquakes within the territory of Navarra; although as the third seismic zone of Iberia, there are physical areas of the geography of Navarra whose importance and transcendence are far beyond generalities due to demography, concentration of productive sectors, industry, heritage, etc. Undoubtedly, the main area is the Pamplona Basin.

Like other territories, Navarre has also forgotten the reality of the soil on which it lives. Pamplona was the scene of a multiple earthquake on March 10, 1903 when 30,000 people lived in the Pamplona Basin in scattered hamlets; concrete had not yet made its appearance; today it dominates the urban landscape. The city was hit for three hours. The latest events have also filled the bars with experts, it has become common to hear conversations about the earthquakes experienced in the first months of 2013. They have not left the population indifferent, there are many who already have an explanation, others treat them with respect, fear...

It is significant the fact that the historical report of the earthquakes in Navarre barely reaches two centuries and a half, a space of time derisory as far as the times of Geology are concerned. test of it is that the first Navarrese earthquake that appears in the official catalogs is the one of November 15, 1755 in Sangüesa, and it is awarded an intensity V-VI. Not even two weeks had passed since the most destructive earthquake ever known in Europe: the Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755, with nearly 100,000 deaths and effects that reached the north of the continent.

Our lack of dialogue with historians, expelled from urban planning commissions, has already shown in LAquila, Emilia, Lorca..., that falling into seismic amnesia can be catastrophic; the passing of centuries without contemplating the cultural and environmental heritage passed on to us by our ancestors has been lethal for their populations. There are sectors that cannot be recovered. Who pays such a high price?

One of the best examples is precisely here in Navarra, and what is more, in Sangüesa and Pamplona themselves. We say that Sangüesa is the first city in the official historical records (15-11-1755) hit by an earthquake. However, a scholar of religious history, Juan Cruz Labeaga, tells us of an event much more moving and spectacular than the one that took place in 1755. A century and a half earlier, in 1612, precisely in that town and also in Pamplona, as the biographer of Philip III and IV tells us, something happened that has never been included in the catalogs of seismicity in Navarre, and of course in the protocols and town planning or sectorial regulations.

That year, a significant episode of several earthquakes took place in Sangüesa and Pamplona during several days. The great error derived is that this phenomenon is not recorded in the historical instructions of our Platena, but the impression left on those men of the early seventeenth century, and the reflection of what could happen, is too strong to go unnoticed. At that time the municipal proclamation proposed to the neighbors, as the best remedy, to turn to God our Lord, with great devotion, so that, using his divine mercy, he would free the town from its affliction. What are we going to do in plenary session of the Executive Council XXI century?