Investigating the Impacts of Earthquakes on Ethnic and Religious Groups: Bucharest, Romania

Piombino, Eileen M.; Lally, Owen; Li,Hung-En; Benevedes, Elias A.; Perlee, Abigail F.

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Investigating the Impacts of Earthquakes on Ethnic and Religious Groups: Bucharest, Romania

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Bucharest, the capital of Romania, experiences a major earthquake every 30-80 years, with the most recent in 1977. Through archival research and interviews with earthquake survivors and experts from Romania, Croatia, Albania, and the United States, this project aimed to explore correlations between social identity and earthquake preparedness in Bucharest. Our results indicate that Bucharest is extremely vulnerable in comparison to other countries. Interviews revealed limitations of Bucharest’s earthquake preparedness, specifically the government's lack of building assessment and citizens’ deep-rooted mistrust due to communist era policies. Despite these challenges to preparedness, NGOs have begun to make progress to improve citizens’ awareness and Bucharest’s disaster response efforts.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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