Severe damage in the Bucharest-Brăila-Brașov area was reported and dozens of casualties in Romania and neighbouring Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria.

In the USGS EXPO-CAT database it is estimated that during this earthquake 355,000 people were exposed to intensity VII, of which around 61% were in rural areas.

The first mainshock was followed by several aftershocks with magnitudes ranging between 3–4.5 degrees on the Richter scale, reported in the afternoon and evening of 30 May.

Other replicas of lower magnitudes continued to occur in Vrancea until the end of June 1990, in the depth floor of 70–90 km.

Two of the deaths occurred in Bucharest in the district of Colentina, when the heavy plasterboard of an 11-storey apartment block collapsed along the expansion joint, due to pounding between the two separate parts of the structure.