City of Zagreb Struck by Yet Another Moderate Earthquake

June 17, 2020 – We’ve almost gotten over our anxieties over the numerous earthquakes that hit Zagreb in 2020, but yet another one of them hit us today.

The major earthquakes which hit Zagreb on March 22, 2020, have wreaked havoc in the city centre, and have been followed by numerous aftershocks. Most of them were not remarkable, but some of them the citizens of Zagreb will remember, as they still grapple with the consequences of The Big One, happening on that snowy morning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The earthquake which was felt in Zagreb today was not of that magnitude, nor is it expected that it caused any damage. It’s just that the people of this city have mostly, honestly, had enough. This is not a seismically very active part of the world, and we’re not used to earthquakes like people in Japan or California are, so we’d just like for the earthquakes to be over by now. The experts, however, are warning us that it takes time for the soil to settle after “the big one” (and in terms of seismicity of this region, the earthquake we had in March was, in fact, a big one), so we’ll just have to live with the soil settling for a while.

(The image is a screenshot of the horizontal mechanical seismograph, installed in Zagreb in 1909; time in UTC)

The EMSC reports that the magnitude of the latest earthquake was M 2.9, while some Croatian sources claim it was M 3.1.

The story says that the big earthquake which ruined Zagreb in 1880 was followed by 30 years (!) of moderate earthquakes. I just hope it won’t be that many years before the COVID earthquake of 2020 which hit Zagreb is finally done.