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More
than one million people participated in the
National Emergency Drill
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
In the first national earthquake evacuation drill, the National Emergency Commission confirmed that one million people throughout the country participated in the training yesterday, Monday at 10 a.m. During the drill families, schools, companies, public institutions, and others reported having made emergency evacuation plans in case of an earthquake. According to Commission statistics, 52 percent of the people who participated in the drill were workers from public institutions, 33 percent are employees of private companies, and 16 percent were civilians. The benefits of this simulation are mainly in three main areas, said the Commission. The first being to involve more than one million people. The second was to teach the population about the importance to be prepared for an earthquake or any emergency. The third was to obtain information about the less-prepared areas of the country, which will strengthen security and prevention measures in those sites. After the drill, President Carlos Alvarado signed the Decree of the National Drill Day which would be celebrated annually every second Wednesday of August. "As a country, we must be prepared for any situation, especially in cases of earthquake," President Alvarado said after the declaring the day the National Day of the Drill. As A.M. Costa Rica reported on August 19, the Commission started at 10 a.m., the first national earthquake evacuation drill. "Costa Rica is a country registering earthquakes very often, due to the proximity of tectonic plates, so it cannot be dismissed that there could be a strong earthquake that affects the capital at any time," said the Commission in its statement. For example, the city of San José is one of the most critical places to evaluate in the simulation, since it is the most important urban center of the country, with the majority of the population, commercial buildings, and public institutions residing there. In the drill, the Commission process the prevention plans, the quality of construction, the response of the work centers or facilities and the population to seismic events, as well as public information will be reviewed. The goal of the drill is "to strengthen the response capacity of a disaster emergency as planning anticipated actions in a scenario," said the Commission in its statement. Except for Social Security institutions, all public institutions were subject to this simulation. At 10 a.m., government employees and private companies, as well as students, were part of the practice, leaving buildings to go to the areas previously defined in the evacuation plan. Related to the most recent earthquakes of significant magnitude, as A.M. Costa Rica previously reported, on August 6th at 3:14 p.m., a 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the northern zone of the country. The epicenter location was 4 km south of Venecia in San Carlos*, with a depth of 109 km. "The main earthquake and the sequence of aftershocks were caused by the subduction of the Coco plate under the Caribbean plate," said the National Vulcanology Observatory in its statement. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Caribbean-Coco plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the northern coast of South America. On June 25th at 11:23 p.m., a magnitude 6.5 Panama earthquake hits the southern area in Costa Rica. The earthquake epicenter was registered 5km SE of Gariche in Puerto Armuelles* in Panama, at a depth of 26.2 km, according to the National Seismological Network. ------------------------ In addition to a drill, what else could the National Emergency Commission do to prevent deaths from natural disasters? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com |
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