Scenario of a major preparedness exercise for a magnitude 5.8 earthquake
An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale hits Thessaloniki. A fire breaks out in the town hall, a woman is trapped on the balcony of the third floor, a municipal employee is missing in the basement, while the worker who was repairing the air conditioners is found injured on the roof of the building.
The Mayor of Thessaloniki gives an immediate evacuation order. Municipality and Civil Protection, Fire Brigade, EKAV, security forces and volunteer groups are on their feet to manage the major crisis.
The event is not real but is part of the scenario of a large preparedness exercise that took place this morning at the Thessaloniki City Hall, as part of the earthquake protection plan.
EKAV also participated in the exercise organized by the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
“We received a call to the coordination center for an incident at the Thessaloniki City Hall and we immediately mobilized with the rescue motorcycle, with ambulances, mobile medical units and the vehicles of the special Disaster Medicine department as well as with the mobile coordination vehicle,” explained Olympia Nicolaidou, emergency physician of EKAB Thessaloniki.
After the evacuation of the City Hall, the employees were taken to the public gathering areas in Emmanuel Papa Park and Areos Field.
In his statements, the mayor of Thessaloniki, Konstantinos Zervas, pointed out that Greece is an earthquake-prone country, but as unpredictable as an earthquake is, all of us – organized state, volunteers, citizens – must be prepared, so that in the event of a major earthquake we have the best possible organization, the best possible management, the fewest possible casualties and the smallest possible losses. I wish we could stick to exercises and never have to intervene in real phenomena. In any case, the citizens must know that we are prepared for any eventuality”, said the Mayor.
For his part, the Appointed Municipal Councilor for Civil Protection actions, Vassilis Mousidis, emphasized: “today we are essentially showing the readiness of the mechanism of the Municipality of Thessaloniki to deal with earthquake cases. The Commander of the Fire Services Administration of Thessaloniki Prefecture, Chief Theodoros Kosmidis stated that the exercise was completed successfully and characterized the cooperation between the involved bodies as excellent. As he explained, the exercise envisaged parallel scenarios, including fire and extrication, rescuing a municipal employee from a balcony using a boom truck, rescue and extrication from the roof of the building using a tripod and rescue ropes, as well as a rescue using fire dog.
Source: Skai
I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years, and my work has been featured on many different news websites. I am also an author, and my work has been published in several books. I specialize in opinion writing, and I often write about current events and controversial topics. I am a very well-rounded writer, and I have a lot of experience in different areas of journalism. I am a very hard worker, and I am always willing to put in the extra effort to get the job done.
