Pre-Quake Project

For your proper information regarding recent earthquakes in the Romania area but also world-wide, we recommend the following official websites:

• INCDFP (http://www.infp.ro/): official web-site of the National Institute for Earth Physics in Romania, in charge of seismic monitoring
• EMSC (http://www.emsc-csem.org/): official web-site of the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, where you can find joint information from multiple seismological centers and products such as Did you feel it? responses and earthquake reports
• USGS earthquake section (United States Geological Survey; https://earthquake.usgs.gov/): information regarding the latest earthquakes and products such as ShakeMap and PAGER, regarding earthquake estimated impact or Did you feel it? responses
• GFZ GEOFON (https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/): information regarding the latest earthquakes
• GDACS (Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System; https://www.gdacs.org/): multi-hazard loss estimates platform at global level, supported by UN and EU
• AFAD (Turkish Disaster Management Authority); https://en.afad.gov.tr/), where you can find information regarding recent earthquakes in Turkey and disaster response. The list of recent earthquakes can be retrieved at https://deprem.afad.gov.tr/last-earthquakes 
• FIIPREGATIT (the Romanian official platform for disaster prevention; https://fiipregatit.ro/): useful resources for a wide array of hazards.

You can find much more useful links on the Mobile Earthquake Exhibition website, where you can also download a html bookmarks file which can be easily imported in your browser.

Some of our recently published work (Toma-Danila et al., 2022) regarding the Network-risk methodology and toolbox applied to Bucharest has been included in a new app: “The seismic risk of Bucharest”.

Check it out at https://tinyurl.com/yt32aeyx. Although in Romanian, it shouldn’t be hard to understand.

The app includes layers regarding:

• individual buildings in seismic risk class I and II or urgency categories (all highly vulnerable buildings – but not all of them in reality)
• buildings affected by the 1977, March 4 (Mw 7.7; 94 km depth) and the 1940, November 10 (Mw 7.7; 150 km depth) Vrancea earthquakes
• areas which might become inaccesible in case of an earthquake (based on Toma-Danila et al., 2022)
• service area results for the nearest hospital and fire department (based on Toma-Danila et al., 2022)
• routes toward important hospitals, for 4 representative analysis points in the city centre (based on Toma-Danila et al., 2022)
• results of the hazard and risk analysis (for the 1:1000 years return period) performed by INCDFP, URBAN-INCERC and UTCB within the Ro-Risk Project in 2017
• hospitals in Bucharest and Ilfov County, with info regarding their importance in case on an earthquake (based on Toma-Danila et al., 2022)
• fire stations in Bucharest and Ilfov County (based on Toma-Danila et al., 2022)
• seismic zonation maps, according to the present seismic design code (P100-1/2013)

The recently published article of Toma-Danila et al. (2022), to which Pre-Quake contributed, reveals the implication of earthquakes on emergency intervention travel times in Bucharest, showing:

• which areas could become unaccessible due to building collapse;
• which are the implications of typical and post-earthquake traffic on travel times;
• which are the safe access routes and important hospitals in case of an earthquake.

As expected, the city center might become severely hard to reach in case of earthquake. The use of delimited tramway lines for ambulances has an important impact in reducing travel times, but not all areas benefit from these. Furthermore, an emergency hospital located in south-western Bucharest might be highly important in reducing travel times for the area. The articles provide enough solutions for better emergency reduction planning.

Read more on the Frontiers in Earth Science article webpage.

What were we up to in the last period? Innovative articles and presentations, following the project objectives. We participated (online) at the 37th General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission, at the Balkan Geophysical Society International Congress and at the 1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering, presenting:

• Toma-Danila D., Radulian M., Neagoe C., Cioflan C.O., Grecu B., Bala A., Manea E.F., Tiganescu A., Tataru D. (2021) Improving the configuration of seismic networks in urban areas in order to better understand local site effects and building vulnerability – Bucharest case study, 37th General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission (online, 19-24 Sept 2021) (print screens attached)
• Toma-Danila D., Balan S.F., Molina S., Kharazian A., Armas I., D’Ayala D., Sun L., Tiganescu A., Vintila D., Cioflan C.O. (2021) Steps forward in rapid earthquake loss estimation for Romania, 37th General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission (online, 19-24 Sept 2021)
• Toma-Danila D., Tiganescu A., Cioflan C.O., Ionescu C., Balan S.F. (2021) 10 years of rapid earthquake loss estimation in Romania: insights and foreseen improvements. Balkan Geophysical Society International Congress (online/Bucharest, Romania, 10-15 Oct 2021)
• Bala A., Toma-Danila D. (2021) Shear-wave velocity database as key input for seismic site amplification models in Bucharest City, Romania. Balkan Geophysical Society International Congress (online/Bucharest, Romania, 10-15 Oct 2021)
• Tiganescu A., Toma-Danila D., Grecu B., Craifaleanu I-G., Balan S.F., Dragomir C.S. (2021) Current status and perspectives on seismic monitoring of structures and rapid seismic loss estimation in Romania, 1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering (1CroCEE), 22-24 March 2021, Zagreb, Croatia

Peer-reviewed research articles in highly visible journals will soon follow.

Also, on 10 November 2021, at 81 years after the major 1940 Vrancea earthquake, we launched on YouTube a video devoted to this important event, exploiting the information gathered within Pre-Quake and telling its lessons. Here it is:

In order to keep the lessons of previous earthquakes and their implications alive, we’ve added two new sections to our website:

Photo archive of earthquake damage in Romania	Scanned historical documents about earthquakes in Romania

Check out these infographics in order to understand what we are intending to do within Pre-Quake.