In terms of seismicity, Romania has a moderate seismic activity, given its geographical position and its closeness to a convergent plate boundary. The Vrancea region, located in the South-Eastern part of the country is especially high in earth quakes and traditionally has been the epicenter of many earth quakes.
Probability of earthquakes:
Romania is situated in a seismically active region and has a history of devastating and deadly earthquakes. The Bucharest area has experienced a number of tremors of varying intensities, and the probability that a severe and damaging earthquake will occur is high. From: http://romania.usembassy.gov/acs/disaster_preparedness.html
In fact, Bucharest has been named by the British paper "The Guardian" as Europe's earthquake capital. (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/mar/25/risky-cities-red-equals-danger-in-bucharest-europes-earthquake-capital).
How do we handle earthquakes in Romania?
According to Japan-Romania knowledge transfer for earthquake disaster prevention preparedness of citizens in Bucharest, http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/13_2023.pdf, the seismicity of Romania is dominated by the Vrancea intermediate depth earthquakes (as a rule depths between 80 and 160 Km) that affect with high intensities ca. 50 % of the territory. The amounts of elements at the highest risks are large, since the seismic areas cover 65% of the territory, including almost 75% of the population (over 60% in strong seismic zones). The size of actual losses was emphasized by the March 4th, 1977 Vrancea earthquake (M=7.2) as well as by the November 10th, 1940 earthquake (M=7.4). The March 4th, 1977 earthquake was a disaster for Bucharest, due to the concentration of casualties (over 90% of the total 1,570 deaths), collapse of high rise buildings and other large damage, 1.4 billion US dollars.
How do we prevent catastrophes produced by earthquakes in Romania?
Given these tragic events involving devastating loss of human life and after centuries of seismic damaging events, earthquake resistant design codes for buildings were enacted in 1942 as well as provisions to evaluate and rehabilitate existing buildings. A new earthquake design code with a new zoning map began to be enforced in 2004-2005, increasing the demands for rehabilitation of existing buildings.
According to http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/13_2023.pdf, the Romanian National Center for Seismic Risk Reduction is involved in:
- issuance of new technologies for retrofitting the earthquake vulnerable buildings and structures, as well as new codes for seismic resistant design, with a special component for seismic instrumentation of Bucharest and of densely built areas;
- transfer to specialists state of the art knowledge in the anti-seismic protection domain and issuing documentation regarding the education of the population and knowledge dissemination for preventing risks;
- development of technical knowledge by training, studies and documentation, seminars, courses and lectures in Romania and abroad, promotion of the international cooperation for seismic risk management, studies and publications in the specific field of activity;
The latest major earthquake in Romania (M 5.6) occurred on November, 22nd 2014. No victims or significant damage were reported, however the quake was strongly felt in Bucharest and several other parts of the country. See http://www.euronews.com/2014/11/22/earthquake-measuring-56-strikes-romania/
As a side note, earth quake early warning efforts are made available for the entire Europe through the prism of REAKT, according to: http://www.reaktproject.eu/reakt_presentations/Clinton_Zollo_EEW_Europe%281%29.pdf
Great entry this week-I particularly enjoyed learning about the red dots (I had no idea!). A simple way of discerning risk areas. Do you know if they do regular quake drills like i the US schools?
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a great awareness in Romania about the dangers earthquakes pose to human life and property, given the relatively frequent earthquakes that don't cease to occur and the catastrophe of 1977 which resulted in 1,570 deaths (almost 2000 according to other estimates) and significant property damage. As a child growing up in Romania, we had to go through several emergency drills in school because of the potential for earthquakes and I am convinced those are mandatory drills for all schools to date.
DeleteWhat Ana said!^^ great article find from "The Guardian". It makes me very sympathetic to those trying to preserve the older buildings of Bucharest. I also had no idea Romania was so seismically active. Did you ever have any earthquake experiences while you lived there?
ReplyDeleteYes, Brendan! I did experience a total of 5 earthquakes, out oh which 2 were very memorable.One in particular, I was in school, in class when a terrible noise began all of a sudden and then the writing tables in the classroom started to shake and gradually move and it certainly felt like the entire building was moving and that there was nothing that one could do to stop that terrifying shaking. It lasted close to a minute and it literally felt like an eternity; I do remember a disturbing scene that has stayed with me: it was a History class and the History teacher sat down at her desk and froze, making the cross sign, while students did not react in any way, possibly because they were not entirely aware of what was going on (just one let out a few screams); From that moment on the school decided to have more drills in order to better prepare for this kind of situations. Luckily there was no one hurt, but the sense of helplessness was very hard to cope with. Thanks so much for your comment and for your question!
DeleteVery interesting blog and neat how you found articles and resources to go with all of your main topics in the post. I also found it interesting how they use the red dots to signify which buildings are at risk during an earthquake.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I didn't even know Romanian was so seismically active.
ReplyDelete