Euromed: PPRD South organises tsunami alert in the region

Sixty risk management experts from the Euro-Mediterranean and Balkan countries will meet to discuss the idea of setting up an efficient early warning system which detects potential tsunamis in the Mediterranean, alerts populations at risk and triggers proper protective behaviours, at a workshop organised by the EU-funded Civil Protection programme (PPRD-South) on the island of Stromboli (Italy) from 30 May to 2 June 2012. According to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu), the workshop will be held in one of the most exposed Mediterranean areas to the tsunami risk. Participants will be informed how, through a regional network of scientific institutes, NEAMTWS can now detect earthquakes or submarine landslides that can generate a tsunami. It can also identify potential tsunami impact areas, predict its propagation and its time of arrival and finally issue the tsunami warning to national authorities. Participants will assess the feasibility of exchanging sea level data which can confirm the tsunami and provide information on its amplitude although, in the Mediterranean, due to short tsunami wave travel time, it is not always possible to wait for such confirmation before issuing the alert. Statistically, tsunamis in the Mediterranean are more frequent than those in the Indian Ocean and have caused extensive damage and loss of life over the centuries. According to the European Environment Agency, 200 tsunamis were recorded over the last 500 years around the Mediterranean, mainly occurred in the most seismic and volcanically active regions like the Aegean, Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas, the sea of Marmara, along the Algerian coast and Cyprus. The PPRD South Programme (Programme for Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters) is managed by a consortium led by the Italian Civil Protection Department together with the French, Algerian, Egyptian Civil Protection Authorities and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). (ANSAmed)