Losses due to historical earthquakes in the Balkan region: Overview of publicly available data

Abstract

This study analyzes catastrophic losses due to earthquakes in the Balkan region. Analysis is based on the following data on earthquakes, collected from the OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database (Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium) for 1900 to 2010: numbers of fatalities, size of the affected population and costs of material damages. Catastrophic losses were caused by 62 earthquakes in countries within the region: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece. The analysis shows that a significant number of people in the Balkan region were killed (4,974) or were affected (2,033,723) by the earthquakes and that many countries suffered significant material damages (10,410.16 million USD) during the analyzed period. The main disadvantage of using publicly available sources is the lack of consistent data on earthquake damages. A brief review of the most catastrophic earthquakes recorded in databases through the last 110 years is given, based on the data from publicly available databases.