5.2 and 5.7 Richter Earthquakes in South-Western Romania, followed by up to 4.7 Aftershocks

Earthquakes shook Romania at the beginning of this week. A 5.7 Richter earthquake occurred on Monday, while a 5.2 Richer hit on Tuesday. The last one was followed by 13 aftershocks, the major having 4.7 on the Richer scale.

There are some intriguing facts about these earthquakes. First, they happened in South-Western Romania, an area not the epicentre of seismic activity in the country. When discussing earthquakes in Romania, the Vrancea area is the first to cross anybody’s mind. These days’ earthquakes strike Gorj county, an area famous for anything else but seismic activity.

The second intriguing fact is that the Romanian earthquakes happened after the devastating ones in Türkiye and Syria. This is something that specialists haven’t cleared out yet – are they linked to what has happened in the two countries? They’d rather say no, but no one can say for sure. And the sequence of events tells us that a coincidence is rather hard to believe.

The third fact is that all these events made Romanians panic about whatever rumour of an earthquake. Fake prophets appeared predicting the next earthquake, and in the East, in Constanta, the harbour city near the Black Sea, people rushed to the streets after prophets predicted the next devastating earthquake.

Authorities try to calm down the population and tell no one can predict earthquakes. Appeals to people to get information only from official sources are made. Still, Romania is one of the countries whose past devastating seismic events, such as the one in 1977, left thousands of deaths and tens of thousands homeless. This is why earthquakes trigger such exaggerated behaviour in the country.