1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering 1CroCEE 2021

The territory of Montenegro is characterised with very high seismicity, where seismic hazard decrease from the coast to mainland. The last devastating earthquake occurred in April 1979 when a lot of modern facilities were destroyed, as well cultural and historical monuments, roads and railways. The directed damages were approximately in value of 15 billion of US dollars in today’s value. This paper presents the overview of characteristics structural damages observed in facilities caused by this earthquake. The known circumstances and human errors that led to collapse of structures are also discussed. The paper briefly presents most common structural measures taken in Montenegrin engineering practice in order to repair the the earthquake induced damages or to retrofit existing facilities. 40 years after an earthquake, Montenegrin society is facing new challenges in earthquake engineering, both from practise and science point of view. 4% in total losses from natural disaster events in past 15 years is induced by earthquakes, which is a lot considering that no significant earthquakes were registered during the period. An overview of measures taken (or planned to be taken in future period) in order to decrease seismic risk on territory of Montenegro are presented: from implementation of modern codes, developing and implementation of innovative solutions for retrofitting of structures to conducting national seismic risk assessment.