LAUSR

This paper focuses on the investigation of seismic risk for residential buildings situated in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. With a population of nearly 2 million inhabitants and a residential building stock of more than 130,000 units, Bucharest represents a city with one of the highest seismic risks in Europe. The seismic risk is evaluated taking into consideration only the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source which exhibits a dominant influence on the seismic hazard in southern and eastern Romania (including Bucharest, as well). The analyses are conducted based on a Monte Carlo earthquake catalogue which covers a time span of 50,000 years and includes more than 13,000 seismic events with magnitudes MW ≥ 6.0. In addition, in order to account for the ground-motion variability throughout Bucharest, a recently developed spatial correlation model is applied. Thus, the influence of the ground-motion correlation on the damage estimates for Bucharest is evaluated, as well. The seismic risk estimates obtained for various earthquake scenarios show a significant variability of the results obtained and offer valuable information for the decision-makers from public institutions dealing with the risk management.