Next Future Large Earthquake in Romania: A Disaster Waiting to Happen?

Abstract

Romania has one of the highest seismic‐hazard levels in Europe. The recent study by Pavel et al. (2016) shows that around two‐thirds of the country (over 150,000 km2) has an expected peak ground acceleration in excess of 0.2 g (value with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years). In this article, the possible impact and the institutional response in the event of a future large earthquake are discussed in the light of a several recent events and studies. Romania is mainly affected by earthquakes occurring in the Vrancea intermediate‐depth seismic source. Nevertheless, large magnitude crustal earthquakes can occur in several locations throughout Romania. The 1916 Fagaras earthquake, with an estimated moment magnitude ( M w) of 6.4, was the largest crustal earthquake that occurred in Romania in the twentieth century. It struck mainly an uninhabited area, and thus its impact was limited (descriptions of its effects are also very limited). However, the experience and the information gathered from other shallow earthquakes in 1981 (an earthquake with M w 5.1, and focal depth h of 15 km near the Danube Delta), in 1991 (three earthquakes in the western part of Romania with magnitudes M w 5.5), and in 2014 (a M w 5.4 and h =41 km earthquake in the Vrancea region) have shown that this type of earthquake can cause significant structural damage, panic, and even casualties. The recent experience of the Lorca earthquake in Spain (2011) with regard to structural damage and losses due to a relatively small magnitude shallow‐focus earthquake ( M w 5.1) occurring close to a densely populated area is also worth considering (Hermans et al. , 2014). Other likely candidates for a potentially destructive local crustal earthquake include (Bala et al. , 2015) the Transylvania seismic source that has not generated any significant earthquake ( M w>5.0) since 1880 and is …