Romania's earthquakes
Almost all of Romania’s major earthquakes start deep under Vrancea, a mountain county about 150 km north-east of Bucharest, the capital. Each dot is an earthquake the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) located at least 50 kilometres below Vrancea between 2 January 1998 and 19 October 2026: 3,949 earthquakes, nearly all too weak to feel. The rings are the large quakes of 1940, 1977, 1986 and 1990. The drawing keeps to scale: a kilometre down is the same as a kilometre along the road to Bucharest.
4 March 1977, 21:22. Magnitude Mw 7.4, 94 km deep. 1,578 people died, 1,424 of them in Bucharest. The night Bucharest fell down →
The most recent in the catalogue at publication: 19 October 2026, magnitude 4.5, 124 km deep.
The thin circle is the P-wave, the fast one that arrives first. The thick circle is the S-wave, the one that shakes buildings. Both are drawn at constant speed along straight lines. Times measured on real earthquakes are in How many seconds you get: in Bucharest, between 22 and 32 seconds from the first P-wave recorded in Vrancea to the arrival of the S-wave, over 123 earthquakes (1965–2024).
The relief on top is exaggerated twenty times; otherwise it would not show.
Bucharest’s official list of assessed buildings can be searched street by street. Class I, marked on the building with a red dot (the „bulină”), means the assessment found it liable to collapse in full or in part in the design earthquake. The class does not say when that earthquake will come. The second map lays the 1977 damage, square by square, under the buildings of the risk list of 19 May 2026.
Bucharest's red-dot buildings, one by oneSearch for your street on the 3D map of the official seismic-risk list: 2,798 addresses, 415 in class I, the red-dot class (list of 6 October 2026).
The 1977 earthquake, over today's red-dot buildingsThe 1977 wave crosses a 3D map of the city, with the damage recorded that spring by more than 200 students in about 18,000 buildings, under today’s risk list.Each answer comes from the page that explains it, with that page’s sources.
In Bucharest, the official list of 6 October 2026 has 2,798 addresses; 415 buildings are in class I, the red-dot class. More than half the list (1,455 buildings) has only an “urgency category” from the 1990s, not a risk class under today’s rules. If your address is not on the list, that only means it has no row there, not that it was checked.
Bucharest's red-dot buildings, one by oneThe 1977 earthquake, over today's red-dot buildings
For a deep Vrancea earthquake, Bucharest usually gets 27 seconds between the first wave recorded in Vrancea and the strong wave: between 22 and 32 seconds over the 123 earthquakes measured. Closer to Vrancea the time is shorter: 13–17 seconds in Focșani, a town near the source. A warning message takes a few seconds to go out, and the phone can add delay.
How many seconds you get before the strong waveBefore the S-wave
RTC 18-2026, Romania’s official seismic-hazard table, gives for each of the country’s 3,181 localities how hard the ground shakes in the design earthquake, in g (the acceleration of a falling object): from 0.10 g to 0.50 g. Bucharest has 0.37 g, “very strong” shaking on the USGS scale. Most localities at 0.50 g are in Buzău and Vrancea counties. How well a given building holds up depends on the building.
How hard the ground shakes where you liveRomânia ta, in nine numbers
Under the bend of the Carpathians hangs a piece of old lithosphere that sank and now stands almost vertical. The large earthquakes happen when rock inside it ruptures, between 60 and 200 kilometres down, in an area of about 70 by 30 kilometres. Because they start so deep, they are felt from Budapest to Moscow.
Why do quakes strike deep beneath Vrancea?Straight down: 136 kilometres under Vrancea
Part of the answer is depth. On the map, in 1977 Bucharest was 4.67 times farther from the epicentre than Focșani; through the ground, to the source, only 1.84 times. In 1977 Bucharest had intensity VIII and Focșani VII. In 1986 and 1990 it was the other way round. The thick soft ground under the city, its buildings and the direction the rupture travelled also matter.
Straight down: 136 kilometres under VranceaHow many seconds you get before the strong wave
At 21:22 an earthquake of magnitude Mw 7.4, 94 km under Vrancea, killed 1,578 people, 1,424 of them in Bucharest. Tall blocks built before the Second World War fell, many in the centre. The shaking lasted almost a minute and came in several shocks; the strongest began 19 seconds after the first.
The night Bucharest fell downThe 1977 earthquake, over today's red-dot buildingsHow many seconds you get before the strong wave
Bucharest has a rehearsed plan for the first 72 hours after a major earthquake: alerts, search and rescue, triage, emergency shelter. For what comes after, where people forced out of their homes live for months and years, the public documents checked by the page show no plan with a responsible institution. It shows what exists, what is missing and what you can prepare.
In the Education Ministry’s latest register (updated 8 May 2026), 28,174 of the 33,973 rows, or 82.9%, are marked “unclassified”: the file shows no seismic-risk class for that building. That proves neither that it is safe nor that it is dangerous.
Romanian law requires every home to hold a policy against earthquake, flood and landslide, costing 50 or 130 lei a year. On 30 September 2026 the number of policies equalled 25.1% of the number of homes; in rural communes, 15.3%. The table does not show how many separate homes hold a policy.
If you are indoors, stay there. Drop to your knees, take cover under a sturdy table or desk, hold on to it and protect your head and neck. Keep away from windows, do not use the stairs or the lift, and do not go outside while the ground is moving. Do this at the first shaking you feel, without waiting for it to grow stronger.
If you are outdoors, move away from buildings, trees, poles and power lines.
None of these pages is an alert service. Official warnings come from INFP, Romania’s earth physics institute, on its Telegram channel; the official preparedness guide (in Romanian) is on fiipregatit.ro.
Why to stay off the stairs while the ground shakes, in full: Before the S-wave How many seconds you get before the strong wave
The largest known Vrancea earthquakes, with the page that tells each story.
The largest Vrancea earthquake ever felt; it brought down the Colțea tower in Bucharest. It came before seismographs, so its depth and exact magnitude are unknown.
23 January 1838
In Bucharest the police counted 8 dead, 14 injured and 36 buildings collapsed. Lacul Roșu, a mountain lake often blamed on this earthquake, had already formed in 1837, according to the sources its page read in full.
10 November 1940
Mw 7.7, about 150 km deep. In Bucharest the Carlton block collapsed and other tall blocks were badly damaged.
Why do quakes strike deep beneath Vrancea?The night Bucharest fell down
4 March 1977
Mw 7.4, 94 km deep. 1,578 dead, 1,424 in Bucharest.
The night Bucharest fell downThe 1977 earthquake, over today's red-dot buildingsStraight down: 136 kilometres under Vrancea
30–31 May 1990
Mw 6.9, then Mw 6.4 the next day, both less than 100 km deep.
Cities destroyed and rebuilt, and the whole Earth measured like an instrument.
Lisbon after the 1755 earthquakeThe earthquake, the tsunami and the fire hit the city unevenly; the page follows them through five places, with the damage and the rebuilding plans.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquakeMw 7.9 along 477 km of fault, then three days of fire. What the surviving traces show about the destruction and the rebuilding.
The 1908 Messina earthquakeThe earthquake struck Messina and Reggio Calabria, and a tsunami followed within minutes. The death toll is still disputed.
The Earth rang like a bellAfter the 2004 Sumatra earthquake the planet vibrated for weeks. Hear the recording sped up 500,000 times; it was measured in Romania too.
The same year, two measuresThe USGS catalogue has 17,373 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more between 1 January and 13 August 2026. The ten largest hold 78.1% of the estimated energy.
The ground under Romania's townsGPS stations show how Romania moves: about 26 millimetres a year to the north-east, with the whole Eurasian plate.The dots are every earthquake in the EMSC catalogue at least 50 kilometres deep, of magnitude 2 or more, in a box of about 110 by 110 kilometres around Vrancea: 3,949 earthquakes between 2 January 1998 and 19 October 2026. Each is projected onto the straight line between Bucharest and the cluster of earthquake sources under Vrancea, by its distance along that line and by its depth. The catalogue mixes several kinds of magnitude, so dot size shows only the order of magnitude.
Earthquakes after publication are added when you open the page, from the EMSC public service, and appear with a pulsing ring.
The rings of the large quakes use the location, depth and magnitude given on Why do quakes strike deep beneath Vrancea?. Catalogues give slightly different values; that page lists the variants.