Vijf landen doen mee aan oefening waarmee een aardbeving op Sicilië wordt gesimuleerd (en)
This weekend, civil protection teams from Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom will take part in a civil protection exercise simulating a disaster response to an earthquake in Sicily, Italy. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas will be present at this exercise which involves the deployment of search & rescue teams and other experts in disaster management. This is the fourth international field exercise to be organised in the framework of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism in 2005. Exercises of this kind enable civil protection teams from different countries to work together more efficiently when real disaster strikes.
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas i, in charge of the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism, said: "The lessons from Hurricane Katrina and last year's Tsunami are that catastrophic natural disasters can strike anywhere and at any time. Earthquakes can reduce any community to almost nothing in minutes - and while we have to hope for the best we need to prepare for the worst. The EU Mechanism coordinates assistance Member States and lets us plan together to deal with all eventualities."
The two-day exerciseis designed to simulate an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale. Its epicentre is located at Sortino, a small village in the vicinity of Syracuse. An earthquake in this zone and of this magnitude could potentially induce heavy damages in the provinces of Catania, Ragusa and Syracuse, including considerable damaging consequences to the important industrial area of Priolo.
A similar exercise, PO 2005, simulating a flooding scenario, took place in Bologna, Italy in October 2005. It involved civil protection teams from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. Two other exercises took place in 2005, in France and Poland.
EU Civil Protection Mechanism was launched as recently as this week after Pakistan requested our assistance. The Mechanism is currently co-ordinating Member-States offers to match the Pakistani request for shelters, water and food.
Over the summer 2005 period, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism intervened in flood affected regions in Romania and Bulgaria and against forest fires in Portugal. It coordinated the EU's assistance to the United States in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane. Earlier in the year it dispatched field hospitals, search and rescue teams and forensic experts to South-East Asia after the tsunami.
In the aftermath of the tsunami disaster, the Commission, in order to strengthen European preparedness in case of such disasters, proposed the development of an integrated EU rapid response capability. The Commission proposed the creation of rapidly deployable and self-sufficient units in the Member States which could be ready to respond to different types of disasters.
The EU Civil Protection Mechanism
The European Civil Protection Mechanism was created in 2001. It coordinates 30 European countries'[1] assistance to disaster-stricken countries. Prevention is a key feature of its work. It involves imagining all kinds of scenarios in advance and holding international field exercises on a regular basis to improve the inter-operability of the resources made available by the Member States.
Further information can be found in MEMO/05/306
or at the following website:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/civil/index.htm
[1] The 25 EU Member States plus Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.