Following
the catastrophic Marmara Sea earthquake as well as the strong earthquake
affecting Athens and based on Recommendation 1447 (2000) and 1448 (2000) of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, during the 8th
Ministerial meeting of the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement held in Athens,
Greece on 21 and 22 February 2000, the Ministers adopted the Resolution on the
economic and social consequences of the recent earthquakes in Turkey and
Greece.
With a view to assisting the decision-making process and
co-operation, and on the basis of intended development and implementation of
the permanent telecommunications system between the national authorities of
EUR-OPA countries for risk management (EDRIM), the Ministers instructed the
Executive Secretariat of the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement to implement a
plan for making this system available to the Greek and Turkish authorities responsible
for risk management, based on:
·
Making available to them a map of earthquake risk areas,
regularly up-dated with the help of space images;
·
An early warning system;
·
A geographical information system providing data on
earthquake-prone regions;
·
Information regarding the evaluation of damage in regions
affected by an earthquake, in order to provide assistance in crisis management
and rehabilitation.
Responding to the adopted ministerial Resolution, the
Secretariat of the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement organised three
seminars/evaluation sessions on the “Contribution to the Decision-making
Process in Seismic Risk Management”:
1. “The
Contribution to the Decision-Making Process in Seismic Risk Management – Models
for Earthquake Damage Assessment”, Moscow, Russia, 29 June – 1 July 2000;
2. “The
contribution of Earth Observation Products and Services to the Decision-Making
Process in Seismic Risk Management – Use of Thematic Risk Mapping”, Valletta,
Malta, 27 September 2000; and
3. “Assisting
Decision Makers in Emergency Situation Management and Co-operation – An
Integrated Approach”, Toulouse, France, 13-15 November 2000.
The primary result of the Moscow
seminar was the unanimous recognition of the system “EXTREMUM”, developed by
EMERCOM of Russia, as being the only one at the present time which is able to
provide a quick estimate of damage and casualties caused by major earthquakes
all over the world.
It has been agreed that during two six-month periods,
starting on 1 August 2000 to the end of January 2001 and from 15 April to
October 2001, the EXTREMUM system be tested by providing rapid information on
damage and casualties assessment of any earthquake with a magnitude higher or
equal to i) M ³ 5.5. for the Euro-Mediterranean region; and ii)
M ³ 6.5. worldwide, to:
1. the
network of the Euro-Mediterranean Centres of the Council of Europe’s EUR-OPA
Major Hazards Agreement;
2. specific
national institutions, organisations and/or professionals appointed by national
authorities;
3. the
Executive Secretariat of the Council of Europe’s EUR-OPA Major Hazards
Agreement.
The Valletta (Malta) and Toulouse
(France) seminars were organised to report and evaluate the EXTREMUM
achievements as well as to direct future needs and developments.
Principle
characteristics of the EXTREMUM System
The EMERCOM
of Russia’s System “EXTREMUM” was developed within the Russian State Federal
Programme “Federal System of Seismological Observations and Earthquake
Precision (FSSN)”.
It is
designed to store, analyse and use in the most effective way the considerable
massif of spatially distributed information on : 1) space/in the scales of
1:5,000,000; 1:1,000,000; 1:100,000; 1:10,000 and larger/; 2) seismic hazard/seismic zoning and
microzoning maps of different scale/; 3) elements at risk/population, buildings
and structures, lifeline systems, hazardous facilities/; and 4) algorithms for
combining the parameters of mathematical models for estimation of population
distribution, buildings’ damage and damage distribution, human casualty, etc.
EXTREMUM is an extensively GIS based tool, having already
incorporated numerous data about various parts of the world, at different
levels. This data has been collected,
and the system has been developed through the efforts of many professionals and
over a period of many years, as a part of some previous projects, and through
the initiative of the EMERCOM of Russia.
“EXTREMUM”
testing and results
The testing
of “EXTREMUM” has not yet come to a close but we can already say that the
EXTREMUM has provided estimates which are fairly good for the predefined
objectives of its use, i.e; following the strong to catastrophic earthquake
event taking place anywhere in the world, to understand immediately the scale
of the problems to which the community is exposed, and to estimate whether
wider international emergency response action and disaster relief are necessary
or not; and in the affirmative, on which scale and with what urgency.
J.P. MASSUE
Executive
Secretary
Council of
Europe’s EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement
Z. MILUTINOVIC
Director, Council of
Europe’s European Centre for Vulnerability of Industrial and Lifeline Systems
(ECILS)
Professor at the
Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology
University
“St. Cyril &
Methodius”, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia