Four people were injured in the earthquake that hit Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on the evening of December 30th, with the epicenter in the central part of the country, near Zenica. Snjezana Cvijic Amulic, head of the Department for Observational Seismology of the Hydrometeorological Institute of the Republika Srpska (RS), spoke in an interview whether new ground tremors can be expected in this area.
Also, Cvijic Amulic revealed whether or not there is a connection between the earthquake in Zenica and the earthquakes in Serbia and Croatia.
Interview question: “On the evening of December 30th, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 was felt in several cities of BiH, according to information from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC). Seismologists from Croatia believe that the earthquake was stronger, of about 5.1 magnitude. Are these deviations possible in determining the strength of the earthquake?”
“According to preliminary data, the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.2. There is no device that will measure the magnitude, it is calculated on the basis of seismic waves that reach the seismological stations that are in the network. Almost all the stations in Europe recorded this earthquake and thus there are different data, but the information processed by the seismologist may differ from the automatic ones. The information that was obtained manually is the right information,” she explained.
Interview question: “How dangerous are earthquakes like the one in Zenica?”
“In principle, an earthquake of this strength is in fact about 7 on the Mercali scale, and at this strength, there is such damage as we saw in the epicentral zone – the collapse of chimneys, falling tiles from roofs, cracks in walls, etc.,” she added.
Interview question: “How susceptible is this area of central BiH to earthquakes?”
“There are several seismogenic zones where stronger earthquakes are expected. In this epicentral zone, we expect an earthquake of up to 5.5 on the Richter scale, but sometime earlier in 1386, an earthquake of 9 on the Mercali scale was mapped as catalog data. So, stronger earthquakes of up to 6 on the Richter scale can be expected, but in the last 100 years, there has not been an earthquake like the one we had on December 30th. However, it is possible to expect an earthquake of greater magnitude,” Cvijic Amulic emphasized.
Interview question: “Can we expect new ground tremors in this area in the coming days, so-called aftershocks?”
“Usually no one can answer that question. We can give a forecast in the sense that it is possible to expect stronger earthquakes, but whether it will happen now or in the future we cannot predict. If I say it will and it doesn’t happen, I could be wrong, or if I say it won’t happen, and then there is an earthquake, I was wrong again,” she said.
Interview question: “A few days earlier there was an earthquake in neighboring Serbia and Croatia. How connected are these earthquakes?”
“Globally, the movement of tectonic plates is connected, but if we look at the local level, it is not connected. I cannot put the earthquake in Zenica in the same context as earthquakes in Serbia and Croatia or with earthquakes in other parts of BiH. These earthquakes have nothing to do with micro space,” Cvijic Amulic concluded, N1 writes.
Photo: archive
E.Dz.
