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On January 12, 1956, at 6:46 a.m., a terrifying and otherworldly roar alarmed the residents of Dunaharaszti, a town on the outskirts of Budapest. A few seconds after the roar from the depths ceased, the ground began to shake, the trees and pylons along the road began an eerie dance, and the houses terribly collapsed. The church tower next to the main road cracked and bricks rained down onto the sidewalk. Dozens of tombstones fell into the cemetery and the dug pits were buried with mud. The Dunaharaszti was the most devastating earthquake in Hungary in the 20th century.
This was the most severe domestic earthquake of the 20th century.
In the early days of 1956, seismic activity in the vicinity of Budapest revived. Before January 12, instruments from the capital’s seismological observatory detected a total of 31 minor earthquakes that struck in Buda and the Monor and Gomba areas of Pest county. Although earthquakes could not be predicted then or today, the sudden increase in seismic activity clearly indicated that something was being prepared there, deep in the earth.
Although there were already severe seismic events in Hungary in the 20th century, the Kecskemét earthquakes in 1911 and Eger in 1925, the Danube earthquake became the most severe seismic disaster in Hungary in the century.
The earthquake that struck at 6:46 a.m. on January 12, 1956, was caused by a roar from underground,
then the ground began to shake. The earthquake was detected by seismological stations in Budapest, Kalocsa, Kecskemét and Szeged, and shock waves were even detected at the Vienna and Ógyalla observatories.
Based on these measurements, the strength of the earthquake, which reached a magnitude of 5.6 on the Richter scale, was accurately calculated. (The Richter scale is a measure of the magnitude of an earthquake based on instrumental observations; the magnitude is proportional to the logarithm of the energy released in the earthquake nest.) A 5.6 earthquake
according to the Richter scale, it is one of the moderately strong seismic events,
which, in addition to being noticeable, can cause serious damage to weaker buildings.
The ground cracked after the earthquake
The first wave of commotion caused great panic in the Pest County settlement. Of the 3,500 buildings in Dunaharaszti at the time, 3,144 residential houses were damaged, several of which collapsed. Due to the earthquake in the neighboring town,
The roof of the church was torn in Taksony,
and several houses were also seriously damaged and two people lost their lives.
The earthquake created a 3-centimeter-wide crack in the ground and several mud craters.
50-60 headstones fell in the Taksony Cemetery, and there were almost no houses in the village that had not collapsed or the chimney was damaged. As a result of the earthquake, 38 injured people had to be treated, some of them with very serious injuries.
The main earthquake was followed by another shock wave, shortly before nine in the morning.
The earthquake in Dunaharaszti in Soroksár also caused minor damage, and the earthquake felt good in the capital. These earthquakes were followed by dozens of lower-energy aftershocks and mostly only detectable with instruments. According to measurements, the epicenter of the Dunaharaszti earthquake may have been north of the Bugyi cliff, at the intersection of the Alsónémedi depression and the Vörösvár ditch.
The earthquake may have been caused by the displacement of a sunken dolomite log;
this Triassic dolomite mass rises above the surface in the image of Gellert Hill on the banks of the Danube in Buda. Although the Kecskemét earthquake in 1911 was also 5.6 magnitude, the consequences of the Dunaharaszti seismic event, which claimed fatalities, became much more serious.
The strongest seismic event in Hungary to date was the Komárom earthquake on June 28, 1763. As a result of the earthquake, estimated at a magnitude of 6.2-6.3 on the Richter scale, the center of Komárom collapsed and 63 people lost life in natural disaster.
The earthquake severely damaged Győr, but the 13th-century Premontre Abbey basilica in Zsámbék also fell into ruins.
Hungary is a less seismically active area
Hungary is one of the least seismically active areas; the Carpathian Basin is located on the border of the Adriatic microplate and the Eastern European tablet.
Although the Mediterranean basin is one of the regions with the highest seismic activity on Earth, the table for Eastern Europe is practically free of earthquakes; and the Pannonian or Carpathian basin at its boundary is characterized by moderate seismic activity.
The most seismically active areas of the Carpathian Basin are connected with the border areas of the Alps, the Carpathians and the Dinaric Mountains, the so-called Alpine-Dinaric Orogenic Zone, compared to which the earthquake is moderate in Hungary. However, some parts of the country, such as the Eger or Bakony area, as well as the Mór, Jászberény, Kecskemét and Dunaharaszti areas, are characterized by higher seismic activity compared to the national average.
The interesting phenomenon dates back to the formation of the Carpathian Basin, where the earth’s crust is much thinner than in other areas. This is due to
that the earthquakes that broke out in Hungary, without exception, are among the so-called shallow nest earthquakes,
that erupt in the upper range of the earth’s crust, up to a depth of 20 km, but measured at depths between 6 and 15 km. At the same time, the low seismicity does not exclude the possibility of occasionally strong earthquakes, as exemplified by the great Komárom earthquake in 1763.
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