cONCLUSIONS AND fUTURE wORK

        While this may protect citizens' mental state, it also prevents them from taking action to prepare themselves. The communist regime under Ceaușescu effectively misinformed the public by silencing dissidents that spoke out about the high vulnerability and lack of government action to protect buildings in the city. This induced decades of skepticism towards the government, and an overall lack of understanding of the city’s vulnerability by both the government and citizens. Furthermore, it has been a long time since the last major earthquake in 1977, and many have forgotten the serious impact earthquakes have while the younger generations have never experienced an earthquake (M. Sumbasacu, personal communication, April 22, 2021; A. Kasprovschi, personal communication, April 23, 2021; E.S. Georgescu, personal communication, April 3, 2021).

        Across all of our interviews, experts made it clear that there are two main hurdles to overcome in preparing Bucharest for the next earthquake. First, addressing the lack of building evaluation is critical. Without knowledge of the at-risk buildings, it is not possible for the government to accurately discern the city’s vulnerability, and where to direct resources to have the most impact. Second, informing residents of the city’s current risk level and the preparedness measures they should take is very important. This will mitigate the impact that a future earthquake will have and may save lives.

        The team was not able to draw any definitive conclusions about whether some minority groups may be more at risk due to earthquakes. The team was unable to find research linking demographic information to earthquake vulnerability, and the data the team did analyze was inconsistent due to missing entries and potentially outdated. Although the team was unable to link religious and ethnic groups to varied levels of earthquake preparedness, this project has laid a solid groundwork for achieving this goal in the future. Through analysis of data from Bucharest’s 2021 census and in-person interviews after the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers will be able to attempt a similar approach to accurately assess the preparedness of these groups.