Earthquakes in Romania through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.5 on March 4, 1977 (2 km N of Spulber, Romania), for which NOAA records 1,641 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 17 here, back to 1516. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 2,709 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.8 on October 27, 2004 (Bucharest, Braila; Bulgaria: Northern). NOAA’s record here begins on November 24, 1516 with an earthquake. It grows thinner going back: 9 of the 17 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 5 tsunamis that began in or off Romania. The highest of them reached 3 m, on March 31, 1901.

• October 27, 2004Earthquake · M 5.8Bucharest, Braila; Bulgaria: NorthernNOAA NCEI
• August 30, 1986Earthquake · M 7.2Bucharest, Kishinev-Kagul · 2 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 4, 1977Earthquake · M 7.52 km N of Spulber, Romania · 1,641 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 10, 1940Earthquake · M 7.71,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 31, 1901Earthquake · M 7.2Balchik · 4 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 31, 1901Tsunami · 3 m highBlack SeaNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 23, 1838Earthquake · M 6.9 (est.)Carpathian Fold,Vrancea · 42 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• October 26, 1802Earthquake · M 7.4 (est.)Carpathian Fold,VranceaNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 24, 1516EarthquakeNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Romania when it began inside its borders, or at sea within 100 km of its coast (so one can count for two neighbours), or further out, up to 300 km, where Romania is the nearest country.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• The map frames the box around Romania, its neighbours’ quakes included, so its count runs higher than this page’s.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history