The 1940 Vrancea earthquake, also known as the 1940 Bucharest earthquake, ( ro, Cutremurul din 1940) occurred on Sunday, 10 November 1940, in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, at 03:39 (local time), when the majority of the population was at home. The 1940 earthquake registered a magnitude of 7.7 on the

moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

, being the strongest earthquake recorded in the 20th century in Romania. Its epicenter lay in the Vrancea zone at a depth of about 133 km. The area of maximum intensity for this earthquake was 80,000 km² and macroseismic effects were felt over an area of more than 2,000,000 km². Effects were reported to the north as far away as

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, over 1,300 km away, with estimated seismic intensities of IV–V (MCS degrees), to the south, as far as

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

, to the east, up to the

Kharkov Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

–Moscow line, with estimated intensities of V–VI (MCS degrees), in the west, as far as Belgrade,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

and

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Tectonic setting

Vrancea lies within the Carpathian Mountains, which were formed as part of the Alpine Orogeny. The convergence across this zone stopped about 20 million years ago, but the area remains seismically active. The earthquakes have

reverse fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectoni ...

focal mechanisms and define a southwest–northeast trending zone about 70 km long by 30 km across. The depth range of the earthquakes extends from 60 km down to about 200 km. Seismic tomography studies show that the area is underlain by a body with a high seismic velocity. There are two models available to explain these observations, a detached subducting slab and

delamination Delamination is a mode of failure where a material fractures into layers. A variety of materials including laminate composites and concrete can fail by delamination. Processing can create layers in materials such as steel formed by rolling a ...

of the lower crust. The near vertical geometry of the high-velocity body combined with the focal mechanisms are consistent with extension along the body. Combined with the lack of a clear planar zone of seismicity that would be expected for a subducting slab, this is consistent with some form of delamination.

Background

1940 was characterized by a very high seismic activity in Vrancea. In the first months of 1940 there were earthquakes of magnitude 4.5–5 that occurred at depths of 130–160 km. On 24 June, there was an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 at a depth of 115 km, scarcely felt in

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...

and

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and for ...

. There followed a period of relative calmness until 3 October, when an earthquake of magnitude 4.7–5.0 occurred at a depth of 150 km. On the evening of 21 October, there were many earthquakes, of which the most important took place around midnight at a depth of 100 km (M=4.5). On the morning of 22 October, at 08:37, a stronger earthquake occurred in Vrancea, of magnitude 6.5 and maximum intensity of VII on the Mercalli intensity scale, at a depth of 122–125 km; this quake was strongly felt, especially in Wallachia and Moldavia. Only light damage, for example, cracks in walls and broken windows, was reported, but no casualties. This earthquake did not have immediate aftershocks. At the beginning of November there were, however, several earthquakes over 4.0 at about 140–150 km depth. On 8 November, at about 14:00, less than two days before the catastrophic earthquake, there was another earthquake of magnitude 5.5 at a depth of 145 km, which was also felt in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. A day later, in the afternoon of 9 November there were several weak and local earthquakes, around the town of

Panciu Panciu () is a town in Vrancea County, Romania. It lies on the river Șușița, in the southern part of Western Moldavia, northwest of Focșani. It has a population of approximately 7,600. It administers five villages: Crucea de Jos, Crucea de S ...

, movements which passed almost unnoticed by the population (II–III degrees on the Mercalli intensity scale).

Damage

Iosif Berman - Marele cutremur din anul 1940

The earthquake was felt in

, where 267 people were killed in the collapse of Carlton Bloc, a 14-story reinforced concrete structure, the tallest building in the city at the time. After the earthquake, the basement was engulfed in flames which hampered the intervention of rescue teams. Almost all ceilings of the concert halls collapsed. The American Embassy, the Post's hotel, the building of the Ministry of Agriculture and that of the General Staff were reported destroyed. According to the documents of the National Firefighters Museum, 185 buildings completely collapsed in Bucharest, and another 412 were seriously damaged. The Romanian ''General Association of Engineers'' undertook a detailed study of earthquake effects on reinforced concrete buildings. The main conclusion was that the guidelines used for constructing reinforced concrete buildings, did not take into account possible seismic movement. Following the study, new rules were developed and applied to all postwar buildings.

Focșani Focșani (; yi, פֿאָקשאַן, Fokshan) is the capital city of Vrancea County in Romania on the banks the river Milcov, in the historical region of Moldavia. It has a population () of 79,315. Geography Focșani lies at the foot of the Cur ...

, a city northeast of

and the

epicentre The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

of the quake, was reported in

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

;

was destroyed in 90%, although most of the buildings were made of wood, while the number of casualties is uncertain (22 to 62 deaths, 54 to 300 injured); Galați, the site of the German submarine base, also suffered severely; and Giurgiu, the principal oil port on the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

, saw public buildings and factories completely destroyed. In

Câmpina Câmpina () is a municipiu, city in Prahova County, Romania, north of the county seat Ploiești, located on the main route between Wallachia and Transylvania. Its existence is first attested in a document of 1503. It is situated in the historical r ...

, a densely populated oil town, refinery chimneys toppled, houses collapsed, and pipelines burst, dousing the ground with a sticky and inflammable threat. In the heavily guarded

Ploiești Ploiești ( , , ), formerly spelled Ploești, is a city and county seat in Prahova County, Romania. Part of the historical region of Muntenia, it is located north of Bucharest. The area of Ploiești is around , and it borders the Blejoi commune ...

, a few field fires broke out, but were later reported extinguished. In Chișinău were reported 78 deaths and 2,795 affected buildings, of which 172 destroyed. The earthquake also caused significant morphological effects in the earth's crust, especially in the sub-Carpathian regions of Wallachia and Moldavia; these effects manifested by landslides, fissures, settlements, formation of cracks in the surface layers of the crust, water spurting from cracks formed alongside rivers. According to recorded testimonies, luminous phenomena were observed, both in the epicentral area and in regions that are far away from the epicenter.

Controversial death toll

Initial dispatches, reported casualties that were based on sketchy evidence, however on the second day official reports gave 267 killed and 476 injured all over the country until the evening of 10 November. After the emergency response phase, Tillotson (1940) gave many details of the effects of the earthquake around the country and said that due to telecommunications still interrupted a conservative estimate would place the casualties at 400 killed and 800 severely injured in Romania, with more than 150 killed in Bucharest where 30 or more were still trapped under the debris of Carlton and more than one thousand badly damaged houses had to be evacuated. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine (1940) said that about 98 bodies were extricated from under Carlton debris, while there were 357 killed and thousands injured in all the country. In 1982, the published memoirs of the vice-premier of Romania at the time of the event, indicated 593 killed and 1,271 injured in all the country, and in Bucharest 140 killed from the 226 occupants of Carlton block, with another 300 injured in the city. The rest of the country's casualties were mostly in masonry buildings. Near the epicenter, the city of

and the town of

were heavily damaged and many people died. The cities of Galați and

were seriously affected, as was the region of Muntenia. In a research conducted by the National Research and Development Institute URBAN-INCERC, the death toll stands at 593, while 1,271 were injured, with a further 78 killed in

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...

References

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