1963 Skopje earthquake

1963 earthquake

UTC time	??
Magnitude	6.1 Mw
Depth	6 kilometres (4 mi)[1]
Epicenter	42.16°N 22.66°E / 42.16; 22.66[2][3]
Areas affected	Socialist Republic of Macedonia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) Yugoslavia
Casualties	1,000-1,100 killed[4][5] Other: 3,000-3,330 injured[6][7] 120,000-200,000 left homeless[8][9] 75-80% of city destroyed[10][11]

The 1963 Skopje earthquake (Macedonian: 1963 Скопски земјотрес, Latinic: 1963 Skopski zemjotres) was an earthquake which occurred in Skopje, SR Macedonia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) then part of the SFR Yugoslavia, on July 26, 1963.

Facts

The earthquake which measured 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale^[12] (equivalent to 6.9 on the richter scale)^[13][14] and occurred on July 26, 1963 at 4:17 am UTC^[15] (5:17 am local time)^[16][17] in Skopje, Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then part of SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Macedonia). The tremor lasted for 20 seconds^[18][19] and was felt mostly along the Vardar River Valley^[20][21].

Aftermath

Within days after the earthquake took place, 35 nations requested that the United Nations General Assembly place relief for Skopje on their list of agendas. Relief, in the form of money, medical, engineering and building teams and supplies was offered from 78 countries. ^[22]. The famous artist Pablo Picasso donated his painting Head of a Woman (1963) to the newly established Museum of the Contemporary Arts [23][24][25] in Skopje.

Following the earthquake, Josip Broz Tito, then-president of Yugoslavia, sent a message of condolences to the Socialist Republic of Macedonia:

Together with all the peoples of Yugoslavia we will endeavour to mitigate the misfortune that has befallen your republic.

Gallery

• 
  Symbol of the earthquake: The Old Railway Station in Skopje. The clock stopped at 5.17 on July 26, 1963. Today the building is used by the Museum of the city of Skopje (Muzej na grad Skopje).
• 
  New settlements in Skopje donated by: USA, UK, West Germany, Mexico, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, ČSSR, Poland, the World Council of Churches etc.
• 
  Charity concert for the victims of the Skopje earthquake, Reims, France, November 26, 1963
• 
  Newspaper clips: Help for the citizens of Skopje from Roosendaal, Netherlands, August 8, 1963

References

1. ^ On This Day: 26 July; 1963: Thousands killed in Yugoslav earthquake BBC
2. ^ Seismic Ground Motion Estimates for the M6.1 earthquake of July 26, 1963 at Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Department of Earth Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
3. ^ 1963 Skopje (Macedonia) Earthquake SeismoArchives, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
4. ^ The 1963 earthquake in Skopje In Your Pocket City Guides
5. ^ Marking the 44th anniversary of the catastrophic 1963 Skopje earthquake MRT, Thursday, 26 July, 2007

See also

• List of earthquakes
• History of the Republic of Macedonia