The National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) will participate in an exercise to test the response capacity of the national civil protection system and the coordination of efforts with Spain and Morocco, in the event of a Tsunami associated with an earthquake, tomorrow and Wednesday Tuesday, November 10th and 11th.
The scenario that will be tested is that of an event similar to the 1755 Earthquake, aka Lisbon, which was followed by a Tsunami.
This is an international simulation, which will be carried out in the CPX (Command Post Exercise) modality, which will serve to test the response in terms of protection and assistance of the various Portuguese, Spanish and Moroccan national civil protection systems.
In our country, the initiative has the participation of the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere and the General Directorate of the Maritime Authority.
At national level, the exercise will allow testing of the Special Emergency Plan for Civil Protection for Seismic and Tsunami Risk in the Algarve Region (PEERST-Alg), «namely at the level of interconnection between the various levels in which it is structured and organized civil protection and its agents, protocols relating to emergency communications, the Tsunami warning and alert system, the tools provided for the management of protection and relief operations and the procedures for the reception and framing of projected international teams for emergency assistance in case of disaster», explained the ANPC.
The emergency communication protocols foreseen between the three countries potentially affected by an event similar to the one that caused massive destruction, in Lisbon and in the south of the country, in 1755, will also be tested, and the bodies responsible for managing this type of operations at the level of the European Civil Protection Mechanism (ERCC – European Response Coordination Centre).
The evaluation of the response of Portugal, Spain and Morocco is one of the objectives of the European project “EU WESTSUNAMI”, coordinated by the Dirección General de Protección Civil y Emergencias of Spain, within the framework of which this exercise is carried out.
Other objectives are “to familiarize Moroccan civil protection with the use of information management tools and systems in use by the ERCC and the respective civil protection services in Portugal and Spain, trigger the protocol for obtaining satellite images through the COPERNICUS system and test the official procedures foreseen for international emergency assistance in case of disaster caused by Tsunami».
The ANPC recalls that, despite a simulacrum of this nature being carried out, «it does not mean that a Tsunami associated with a seismic occurrence is imminent, because, as is known, the earthquakes – events that are at the origin of the Tsunamis – are natural, sudden and unpredictable events, for which science does not yet have the capacity or means to predict them».
Comments