On Monday, 19 October, at 11:52 Romanian time, INCDFP recorded an earthquake in the Vrancea–Buzău seismic zone. The magnitude, on the early-warning system (EWS), is M 4.8. Depth: 76.5 km. The epicentre, per the institute: 45.4526° N, 26.1279° E. This is not a manual solution on the front page; the figure can be revised.

The nearest towns, still INFP: 46 km south-east of Brașov, 53 km south-east of Sfântu Gheorghe, 56 km north of Ploiești, 64 km south of Buzău, 78 km north-east of Târgoviște, 86 km south of Focșani. Intensity, in the institute’s table, is still n/a. Some headlines wrote 4.9. We stay with 4.8 EWS.

Mediafax: Bucharest-Ilfov emergency services sent a truck to the Historic Centre, to check. Until then there were no 112 calls. We have not written damage. We do not have, in these reports, a building tally.

IPN, Chișinău: the director of the Institute of Geology and Seismology, Igor Nicoară, said intensity in Chișinău was about 4. The quake was also felt in Moldova. That is a local intensity, not the Vrancea magnitude.

Vrancea produces intermediate-depth quakes over a wide area. That does not make this a “large” earthquake on the magnitude scale. 4.8 is moderate, in the institute’s wording. We have not turned a shake into a disaster alert.

Until a manual solution and an ISU tally, we have the time, the place, the depth and 4.8 EWS. The rest is felt motion, not ruin.

Image: Mușat Pass, Romania, 30 July 2019, Accipiter Gentilis Q., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Not a photograph from 19 October.

Sources consulted: INCDFP — National Institute for Earth Physics; Earthquake in Romania, Monday morning. The quake was in the Vrancea zone — Mediafax; Magnitude 4.8 earthquake in the Vrancea zone, also felt in Moldova — IPN.