M 5.4 in Croatia on 22 Mar 2020 05:24 UTC

Event summary

This earthquake can have a medium humanitarian impact based on the magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

GDACS ID EQ 1211006
Earthquake Magnitude: 5.4M
Glide number: EQ-2020-000040-HRV
Depth: 10 Km
Lat/Lon: 45.8972 , 15.9662
Event Date: 22 Mar 2020 05:24 UTC
22 Mar 2020 06:24 Local
Exposed Population: 330000 people in MMI
3250000 people within 100km
Inserted at: 16 Apr 2020 16:17 UTC
INFORM Coping capacity:
4.5 (Croatia)
INFORM Coping capacity list: Bosnia & Herzegovina= 4.5; Croatia= 3.1; Hungary= 2.1; Slovenia= 1.7; Austria= 1.4

GDACS Score

For more info on GDACS alert score click here.
  Earthquake
(Shakemap)		 GDACS score
NEIC 1.2 1.2
us70008dx7 Scaled population (raster) 4.27  
  C1 shakemap -0.59  
  C2 shakemap 0.53  
  Country Vulnerability 0  
  INFORM_normalised 0.76  
Maximum expected impact using different data sources.
Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
Croatia - Earthquake Mon, 23 Mar 2020 11:02

  • An earthquake of 5.4 M at a depth of 10 km occurred in north Croatia on 22 March at 5.24 UTC (6.24 local time). The epicentre was in the Zagreb area, approximately 10 km north of downtown. The earthquake was followed by aftershocks, the largest of 4.6 M.
  • USGS PAGER estimates that up to 56,000 people were exposed to very strong shaking and up to 864,000 to strong shaking.
  • Media report, as of 23 March, 17 injured people (one severely), around 70 damaged buildings, including the Zagreb cathedral tower and several power outages in the area. Some minor damage was sustained to buildings in nearby Karlovac.
  • Croatia activatied thefor mainly medical items, a field hospital and protective equipment. The (ERCC) remains in close contact with the Croatian civil protection authorities.
Croatia - Earthquake update (ECHO 03 Apr 2020)Fri, 03 Apr 2020 13:00

  • After the earthquake of 5.4 M occurred close to the capital Zagreb (Croatia) on 22 March at 5:24 UTC, the National Civil Protection Authority reports, that the event caused one fatality, 17 injured people and approximately 27,000 damaged buildings across the area.
  • On 22 March, Croatia requested international assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM) for medical supplies, field hospitals and personal protective equipment.
  • Between 22 - 25 March, 7 Member/Participating States (Slovenia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Montenegro, Lithuania, and France) sent over 2,800 items to Croatia under the EUCPM.
  • The European Commission Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated in risk and recovery mapping mode for a post disaster assessment.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2026. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

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Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (48), NEIC (4), OCHA (1), WMO (1), USGS (5), (2), INFORM (2),