Lifestyle

Croatian Earthquake Risk High According to New EU Funded Project

Post-earthquake Zagreb, March 2020
Post-earthquake Zagreb, March 2020 Copyright Lauren Simmonds

May the 12th, 2022 - Those of us who felt the Zagreb earthquake of March 2020 and the Central Croatian earthquake, often called the Petrinja earthquake of December 2020 still remember the horrendous and deafening sounds they caused and the disturbance in the back of the mind that has remained after having experienced them. This new EU pilot project which aims to point out the countries most vulnerable to earthquakes won't do much to ease thoughts when it comes to Croatian earthquake risk.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the cities of Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey, Catania and Naples in Italy, Bucharest in Romania and Athens in Greece are the most affected by earthquakes in Europe. In those four countries, earthquakes generated almost 80 percent of the average annual economic loss of as much as seven billion euros.

People are also entering data into this new EU pilot project. Immediately after Italy, Greece, Romania, Albania and Turkey, comes the Croatian earthquake risk, which isn't very reassuring, as Vecernji list reports.

''Yes, Croatia is the most vulnerable to earthquakes after these countries,'' confirmed Assoc. Dr. Josip Atalic from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Zagreb. Over more recent days, recent earthquake risk research for the European Union, which scientists have been working on for the last four years, has been presented. Back during the 20th century, earthquakes tragically claimed about 200,000 lives across Europe.

''This is a shocking fact, so risk assessments are very important. We're currently working on seismic risk for the City of Zagreb, and when we're done, it will be a new step towards better estimates that depend on the quality of data and maps which are as accurate as possible. This is a pilot project for the whole of Croatia,'' Atalic explained.

The EU co-financed project should be completed in two years, and the Croatian earthquake risk, which is already uncomfortably high, will continue being established.

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