Ireland one of the least likely countries in Europe to be impacted by earthquakes

A damaged mosque following an earthquake in Pasaman, West Sumatra, Indonesia, in February. In Ireland's case, earthquakes can have an indirect effect - it suffered significant tsunami damage following a monster earthquake in Portugal in 1755, partially destroying Galway’s Spanish Arch. Photo: AP/Marsulai

A new assessment of earthquakes and their potential devastation across Europe has found that Ireland is one of the safest places to be. 

The assessment has found that Ireland comes in lowest when it comes to both "hazard" and "risk". Hazard describes the potential for ground shaking due to earthquakes, while risk describes the impact that can be expected in the aftermath in Europe.

An international team of European seismologists, geologists, and engineers, along with the Swiss Seismological Service and ETH Zurich public university, revised the earthquake hazard model from 2013 but also included the whole of Europe for the first time.

More than 200,000 deaths and €250bn was recorded in losses due to earthquakes in Europe in the last century, with the difficulty in predicting where and when they will strike seen as a major factor in why they can be so destructive.

When it came to the revised earthquake model, the non-profit European Facilities for Earthquake Hazard and Risk (EFEHR) said Turkey, Greece, Albania, Italy, and Romania are the countries with the highest hazard in Europe, followed by the other Balkan countries.

"However, earthquake hazard is also considerable in some regions of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland," EFEHR said.

"But even in regions with low or moderate seismic hazard, earthquakes can occur at any time," it added.

While Ireland can be prone to major storms and flooding in many townlands, the most terrifying of all natural disasters is something we need not worry about, the EFEHR modelling suggests.

The modelling suggests that even if the unthinkable happened, the nature of the shaking on the ground and subsequent destruction would not be as violent as in other areas, due to factors such as soil, sturdiness of buildings, and population density in Ireland.

Despite the potential for devastation, many countries have not yet done so-called "seismic assessments", EFEHR said.

"According to the model, buildings constructed before the 1980s, urban areas, and high earthquake hazard mainly drive the earthquake risk. Although European countries have recent design codes and standards that ensure adequate protection from earthquakes, many older unreinforced or insufficiently reinforced buildings still exist, posing a high risk for their inhabitants," it added.

In order to compile the latest comprehensive hazard and risk assessment, thousands of earthquakes were added to the catalogue, which now covers a wider range of magnitudes and includes an additional 1,000 historical events, EFEHR said,

Researchers also added about 1,200 active faults to the active fault database, spanning over 90,000 km of mapped faults, while new ground shaking models were developed for Europe.

In Ireland's case, earthquakes can have an indirect effect - it suffered significant tsunami damage following a monster earthquake in Portugal in 1755, partially destroying Galway’s Spanish Arch.