Update: 5.4 degrees quake jolts Romania in Vrancea region. No risk of bigger one, Marmureanu says

A 5.4 earthquake on Richter scale jolted Romania at 1.20h on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, in Vrancea region. The quake took place at a depth of 97 km and no victims or material damages were registered.

The Institute for Earth Physics (INFP) has revised the magnitude from 5.2 to 5.4 degrees in Richter scale.

The Emergency Situations Inspectorate (ISU) has confirmed no negative effects have been registered. The quake was felt in the south-eastern counties and in Bucharest, as well as in Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and western Turkey, according to Mihai Diaconescu, INFP physicist.

The biggest quake registered lately was the one in Vrancea region on September 24, with a magnitude of 5.3 degrees on Richter scale.

According to INFP Honorary President Gheorghe Marmureanu, there is no risk of having a big earthquake in the coming period.

“Vrancea region is dangerous and stirs huge problems for quakes bigger than 7.3 degrees on Richter scale. From my point of view, there’s no problem, there will be no big quake in the near future. There is no parameter to indicate this one is preceding a bigger one. The earthquakes bigger than 7.6-7.7 degrees are the ones to produce damages. We expect a deep quake, of 130 km deep. At this depth, a big earthquake will not take place, it would reach only 6.7 degrees,” Marmureanu said.

Marmureanu also said that the problem lies with the fact that lots of houses are old, they’ve gone through two or three quakes. “Everything built before 1977 was built in the way we know it. (…) Buildings fall down due to the magnitude but also due to the vibrations and to the terrain where it is built,” he said.