What an earthquake...Romanian Seismologists warn of moar aftershocks along two faults south of Mureș

Earthquake in Arad, felt in several cities

An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale occurred on Monday evening in Arad, according to the National Research and Development Institute for Earth Physics (INCDFP).

On 22.05.2023, 20:46:43 (Romanian time), a medium earthquake occurred in Crişana, ARAD , with a magnitude of ML 4.6 , at a depth of 15 km .

The earthquake occurred 24km SE of Arad, 45km NE of Timisoara, 77km SE of Bekescsaba, 89km N of Resita.

Mihai Diaconescu, seismologist, details about the earthquake in Arad

Mihai Diaconescu, seismologist, commented on the earthquake that occurred on Monday evening in Crişana, Arad, and explained the chances of it generating aftershocks.

"It occurred at the intersection of two faults south of Mureș, near the town of Zăbrani. It is a northwest-oriented fault, the Lugoj-Zăran fault is southeast, and the other fault is assumed by the first data to be the Calacea fault, being the one oriented perpendicular to the Lugoj fault.

It's a local magnitude 4.6, maybe a 4.3 MW. It's hard to say about aftershocks because in the area the biggest earthquake was 5-6 in this area, but the Târgu Jiu experience that shook us well makes us cautious in making estimates of this kind.

In the Arad area, there have been no earthquakes larger than four in the last 10 years. They were in the southern area of ​​Banat, around Moldova Noua, in that area, there were 5-6.

The earthquake is quite small, the depth is shallow, it may locally disturb the waters a little, but in any case, it cannot have influences, let's say, in the seismological zone northwest of Târgu Jiu.

In the Arad area, I do not know of any seismic sequence in the last 20-30 years, maybe more, but it was not recorded in the catalog. It's unlikely," said seismologist Mihai Diaconescu, in the Sinteza Zilei show on Antena 3 CNN.