In the historic center of Bucharest, red stickers dot Victory Avenue. These circles, nicknamed “bulina roșie”, do not indicate neoclassical or Art Deco style facades, but buildings which risk collapsing in the next earthquake. They are categorized as “seismic risk I”, the most serious of the four categories. According to the UN, the country is among the most exposed to earthquake risk.
Seismic activity is frequent in the Vrancea region, in the east of the country, where “the African plate is gradually rising over the European plate and creating a deformation zone,” explains Cédric Twardzik, seismology researcher at the Géoazur laboratory. In 1977, a devastating earthquake, whose epicenter was the Vrancea massif, killed nearly 1,600 people in Bucharest. For almost fifty years, the country has remained under constant threat of new tremors, but its architecture is not built to resist them. However, “it is not the earthquakes themselves that kill, it is more often the buildings,” recalls Cédric Twardzik.
“We will have many more deaths”
On the sidewalk, eyes fixed on one of these premonitory pastilles, Edmond Niculușcă sums up the emergency bluntly: “The situation is dramatic. Bucharest is a real time bomb. If another earthquake of the same magnitude occurs, there will be many more deaths. » In a report dating from 2022, the municipality estimated them at 6,500. The thirty-year-old leads the Antiseismic District initiative, which aims to inform residents of the city center and has worked on the subject for the town hall, within the administration responsible for the consolidation of buildings at seismic risk.
Residential buildings, schools, universities, hospitals… The World Bank estimates the number of potentially vulnerable buildings in Bucharest at 20,000. Edmond Niculușcă looks up at a building from the interwar period: “This one, if there is an earthquake of magnitude 7, it will collapse. That's a certainty. Here, nothing has been built to seismic standards. »
Buildings disguised to create an illusion
Four months after the 1977 earthquake, communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu ordered all consolidation to stop. Thousands of buildings have still not been reinforced since. Edmond Niculușcă criticizes this “criminal political decision”, as does the choice of certain elected officials to only renovate the facades, without structurally consolidating the buildings. On Avenue de la Victoire, he points to a building with his chin. “The facade is extraordinary, isn’t it? But come on. »
It rushes under a large covered porch to emerge, a few meters further, into the interior courtyard of the building. “This is the true face of this building! » Behind the Romanian, a building stands out made of raw concrete, pitted with air conditioners, but also with cracks and torn sections of plaster. Under the sticker, around ten key boxes also swarm, signs of Airbnb-type rentals, despite the ban on tourist rentals in these high-risk buildings.
Pellets, the tip of the iceberg
“The buildings which have “bulina rosie” are those which have been appraised, they are not necessarily the worst. Everything is worse,” laughs Edmond Niculușcă. To date, less than 2,800 have been assessed according to the official list of the Bucharest Municipal Administration (AMCCRS). Added to this incomplete diagnosis are the exorbitant cost of the work, administrative blockages and a lack of political and popular will. “The owners refuse to vacate the apartments, even though the State now takes charge of everything. After the revolution, some buildings were consolidated with the promise of rapid work, but they sometimes lasted fifteen or twenty years. People no longer have confidence. »
However, the trauma has not completely disappeared. Edmond Niculușcă remembers with emotion his grandmother, unable to sit down in the chair she was in during the 1977 earthquake without reliving the tremors. “In Bucharest, an entire generation still remembers this earthquake,” underlines Cédric Twardzik, before noting a paradox: “The older it is, the more we can expect it to happen again, but the less memory there is on the subject. »
“Anti-seismic plaster” to reassure yourself
In the street, many Romanians brush aside the dangerous nature of Bucharest's buildings. In front of an old building, flanked by a red sticker, a massive sixty-year-old gets angry at our question: “You'd better talk about the damage in France, that's a real problem!” » A second passer-by smiles politely: “Perhaps this building will fall, but I have less confidence in the one next door, it did not resist previous earthquakes. »
Because many Romanians still believe “in myths”, regrets Edmond Niculușcă. There are those who imagine the foundations mounted on balls in order to absorb tremors, or those who consider that a building having survived the earthquakes of 1940 and 1977 is now invincible. Behind him, the cracks in a building have been sealed with plaster. “At the time, they said it was anti-seismic plaster,” laughs Edmond Niculușcă.
To reassure themselves, some also argue that a personality of the communist regime lived in their building, which therefore cannot – obviously – be dangerous. “If you go into your apartment every day, you have to tell yourself stories,” sighs Edmond Niculușcă. Especially since “it is extremely difficult to know when the next major earthquake will hit Bucharest. It might not happen for twenty years, a hundred years, just like it might happen next year,” warns Cédric Twardzik. And the “bulina roșie”, strewn all over the city like Tom Thumb’s path, say nothing about the time Romanians have left to protect themselves.
