How would Bucharest look like in the case of a major earthquake?

Fatality, danger and awareness

Roxana Vasile, 15.02.2023, 14:00

A 7.4-degree earthquake on the Richer scale occurred
in eastern Romania’s Vrancea seismic area on March 4, 1977, at 21:21 hrs local
time, at a depth of 94 kilometres. The seismic movement was strongly felt
across the country, mainly in the south and east. The tremor was also felt in neighbouring
countries, Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary, but also in other countries in central and
southern Europe, as well as Russia, in an area north of Sankt Petersburg.

In the ’77 quake, just
as Romanians label it when they reminisce the catastrophe, from memories or by
hearsay, of the country’s 40 counties, 23 were seriously hit. The tremor
claimed the lives of 1,578 people. Over 11, 300 people were injured, of whom
1,424 eventually lost their lives, that is 90% of the total number of the
deceased. Almost 7,600 people were injured in Bucharest alone! Back then, icons
of Romanian cultural and artistic life were among the dead: actor Toma Caragiu,
television director Alexandru Bocăneț, vocalist Doina Badea, literary historian
Mihai Gafița and prose writer Alexandru Ivasiuc.

In Romania’s capital city, most
of the deaths occurred in the wake of the total or partial collapse of more
than 30 buildings, medium or high-level block of flats, some of them iconic for
the city’s architecture. Also, a hotel and a wing of the Chemistry Faculty
collapsed, as well as the Transport Ministry’s IT Centre. The Bucharest West thermal
power plant was a whisker away from exploding, because a ceiling collapsed and a
fire broke out. Many other buildings in Bucharest were severely or moderately
hit.

The devastating earthquakes that
hit Turkey and Syria in early February and their dismal aftermath, but also the
tremor that hit Romania in early March 1977 prompted the Romanians to reach the
worrying conclusion that no lesson has been learned as regards the impending
necessity to consolidate the buildings assessed according to various degrees of
seismic risk!

Here is architect Ştefan Dumitraşcu, speaking about the present-day situation in Bucharest.

When I held
the position of chief architect at the Municipality, for two and a half years,
these buildings were identified and more than 180 of them had been going through
a technical expertise so that solution could be found, for their safeguarding
or consolidation. Moreover, two and a half years ago, through the Municipal Administration
of the Seismic Risk Consolidation Works Administration, as part of the General
Council in Bucharest municipal city there were 81 construction sites, especially
created for such works. Unfortunately, because of changes in administration and
because of a different mindset, as we speak, we have zero consolidation
building sites.

Mostly in the capital city’s
central area, a great number of old constructions, built before 1977, are very
fragile, because decades have passed and no renovation works have carried
whatsoever, let alone anti-seismic consolidation. That is why, according to
Stefan Dumitraşcu, we’re running out of time.

We are, however,
in the eleventh hour, maybe in the twelfth hour, if we want to make sense of
what we must do. A consolidation operation cannot be completed overnight, it is
a building site that lasts for a year, a year and a half, for a building
erected in 1940, let’s say, an eight or ten-story building located on the
Magheru Boulevard or Voctoria Road, two of the capital city’s most significant
thoroughfares. As I was saying, on one hand, we can educate the people, in a bid
to find the right alternative solutions for regrouping, helping and intervening,
in the case of an earthquake. Everybody is unanimous in admitting that a major
tremor in the Capital city will occur, and it will occur, that’s for sure, and
it’s out of the question, with us, like, on a fine spring afternoon, going out
in the park and waiting for the army to show up, carrying products from the
State reserve and giving us a bottle of water each, and a can of meat. No way!
Something like that must be very seriously organized and we also need to have a
competent management at the Municipality, so that consolidation works can be
resumed as soon as possible.

The prefect of the Capital
city, Toni Greblă, also cautioned that it was not the lack of funding that hindered
the buildings anti-seismic rehabilitation, but

…The
carelessness of some of the administration officials who do not have a proper
preparation of the projects enabling the start of the buildings’ rehabilitation
and their anti-seismic consolidation. In the last 15 years, no municipal city
can complain, and at that, especially Bucharest municipal city, that they did
not have money earmarked for the rehabilitation of buildings. Year after year,
funds provided by the Development Ministry remain unspent, and that, because we
are unable to work in order to develop projects for the anti-seismic
consolidation, and implement them.

The consolidation of the
buildings assessed for seismic risk can be fully financed from the budget but
also through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Romania, after registration is
made for a dedicated digital platform. Waiting for their buildings to be
consolidated, could the Romanians know, at least, what the country’s safest
cities are, in the case of a strong earthquake? Attempting an answer to the
question is a seismologist with the National Research-Development Institute for
Earth Physics, Mihail Diaconescu.

Of course we
can know that, but I’m not so sure how sound that would be. What are we going
to do, migrate to those cities, all of us, and depopulate part of the country? ʺ
The thing is, construction and consolidation works should be carried, for all
that has been affected in time. The moment we set about building something, not
us, as natural persons, but as the State, as construction companies, we need to
comply with the construction code. If that construction code is complied with, the
danger does not exist anymore, that of the house crumbling on us.

So, as we speak, how would
Bucharest look like, in the case of a major earthquake? Far worse than 46 years
ago, possibly. According to data provided by the Development Ministry, in
Romania, there are 2,687 buildings assessed according to various degrees of
seismic risk. Most of them a rein Bucharest, of which several hundred are 1st
and 2nd-degree buildings according to their seismic risk potential.

However, the situation is far
worse. According to a survey carried by the Bucharest Municipal City’s
Emergency Situations Committee, should an earthquake happen, having the same
intensity as that in 1977, in Bucharest, 23,000 buildings could suffer serious
damage. Of those, 1,000 could collapse, partially or totally. (EN)