The Most Devastating Earthquake in the Pannonian Basin: 28 June 1763 Komárom

Abstract

Abstract The 1763 Komárom (now Komárno, Slovakia) earthquake was the biggest historical and recorded seismic event in the Pannonian basin in the last millennium. Contemporary documents including building damage reports from the towns of Komárom, Győr, and other locations, aftershock reports, liquefaction reports, and local surveys of taxpayers’ loss in villages are presented to build all available datasets to evaluate the effects of the quake. Damage in towns was recorded in detail only at the aforementioned two locations. However, the spatial distribution of shaking intensity can be inferred over a larger area from information obtained from other sources. Distributions of secondary environmental effects, aftershocks, and village damage show interesting spatial correlation among them and indicate that the epicenter may have been west of Komárom, north of the Danube River.