NEAMWave 2014

The tsunami alert exercise that took place from the 28 to the 30 October in the Mediterranean, North-eastern Atlantic, and the Black Sea has been marked by a strong participation of the civil protection authorities. This simulation aimed at testing the preparedness of the countries participating in the NEAMTWS established by the IOC of UNESCO.

In comparison to the first test organized in 2012, more Civil Protection Authorities (from 5 to 14) took part in the exercise. This exercise has been also the occasion to test the mainstreaming into the NEAMTWS system of the standard operational procedures of the Emergency Response Coordination Centre of the European Commission, which co-funds the exercise, for providing international assistance through the Union civil protection mechanism in case of major disasters.

For certain countries, e.g. Spain, Lebanon, Romania, UK, this exercise was the first occasion to establish contracts among the actors concerned with tsunami risk at national level.For the first time, countries bordering the Black Sea, like Romania and Russia, participated in the exercise.

During the exercise some communication issues has been identified, providing the opportunity to learn some lessons regarding, in particular, the use of some communication technologies.

The exercise, named NEAMWave14, simulated 4 earthquakes generating tsunamis in the Mediterranean, north-eastern Atlantic, and Black Sea. In total 20 countries, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom out of 39 NEAMTWS Member States took part in the exercise.

Visit the North-Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Tsunami Information Centre (NEAMTIC) website:http://neamtic.ioc-unesco.org/

*Article taken from IOC Tsunami Programme webpage Dec 2014, http://ioc-tsunami.org/

For more information visit the NEAMWAVE Exercises webpage, click here.