Having spent 22 years between the San Andreas and Hayward faults (just to mention two), and experiencing up to 7.1 Richter, i can attest that even wealthy areas make gambles in their decision-making.  At some point, the gambles will be lost.

I always checked things from bedrock to the building before i made a move, learning to live on solid rock rather than liquifaction prone silt.

Thanks for bringing Romania's situation to the fore.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

I don´t feel too charitable today...

I didn´t include the budget issue because I'm not an expert and didn't found verified information. You´re right in one thing: it seems expensive, what I read is a cost of at least 100 euros/square meter. Fair enough, people cannot afford it. However, the budgetary allocation has been fairly great these years. What I should do is to take some time andgather all the numbers to prove that, as I haven´t done that research thoroughtly. There´s budgetary allocation for preventive programmes from World Bank financing, Japanese Development Agency Aid, Ministry budget, Local budget. In European programmes there´s no specific funding for that because the issue is covered by other "traditional" funding frameworks. Traditional, at work since 1989-1990 at least... but... working?

But let´s be a little charitable: they´ve done things, they DID improve the monitoring sites ans research centres (there used to be 1 and now there´s 4 or 5). That´s good, I agree.

About World Bank financing, having WB money allocatied to these expensive programmes is very significative, as Romania is now non elegible for almost every kind of WB or IMF aid. Infrastructure programmes where cut off after EU membership, and there´s already no support on monetary policy because of the same reason, but antiseismic programmes are still supported by international organisations. I reckon that´s because they are critical everywhere, hazards being closer to "Millenium Goals" than to "EU Goals".

"If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)