Abstract
Bucharest is among the European capitals most vulnerable to earthquakes. Although located at a relatively large epicentral distance (about 140–160 km) from Vrancea area, Bucharest has suffered much destruction and loss of life during great Vrancea earthquakes. In the last century, November 10th, 1940 earthquake (Mw = 7.7) caused the completely collapse of Carlton building located in the central city area, killing over 300 people, and many other high buildings were affected in capital city as in other cities closer to the epicenter. More than 1000 people were killed in a matter of minutes in all Romania during the earthquake, while city of Panciu was destroyed in 90–95 % proportion. This was the moment when the first alarm signal regarding the introducing of mandatory regulations in the seismic design of buildings came out. However, the recommendations made by the specialists were largely ignored by the authorities of the time, so that the next major earthquake of March 4, 1977 (Mw = 7.4) caused the biggest recorded disaster in the history of Bucharest The earthquake of 1977 caused only in Bucharest the collapse of 32 buildings, 8–12 floors high, while about 150 old buildings, with 4–6 floors were badly damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were built between the 1920 and 1940, they did not benefit of the anti-seismic design. In the case of Bucharest the buildings have been previously damaged in the 1940 earthquake and during the bombardments in the World War II. Over 1500 people died and about 7500 were wounded, most of them in Bucharest City. The total cost of the damage amounted to more than 2 billion dollars, two thirds being related to the capital city only. The aim of the paper is to present aspects related to the consequences of the Vrancea 1940 and 1977 earthquakes, highlighting the differences between the two catastrophic events and their consequences. Therefore everything learned from the past should not be forgotten in order to insure that the next catastrophic event will find a better prepared society.
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This paper was sustained by UEFISCDI Programme Partnerships II, in the frame of the contract 90/2014 in which the author is partner from National Institute of RD for Earth Physics.
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Bala, A., Toma-Danila, D. (2016). The Strong Romanian Earthquakes of 10.11.1940 and 4.03.1977. Lessons Learned and Forgotten?. In: Vacareanu, R., Ionescu, C. (eds) The 1940 Vrancea Earthquake. Issues, Insights and Lessons Learnt. Springer Natural Hazards. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29844-3_2
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