Strengthening the Large-Scale Earthquake Resilience of Cyprus by Implementing Joint Planning and Response Operations facilitated by the UCPM

ongoing

An FSX in Cyprus with an earthquake scenario. The exercise will examine the response procedures of the essential services involved and based on the scenario; Cyprus will request assistance from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The exercise/project aims to improve the civil protection preparedness and response capabilities of the Republic of Cyprus in dealing with large disasters that require joint response coordination facilitated via the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Cyprus lies on the 2nd most earthquake prone area of the planet, and based on the National Risk Assessments there is a possibility for a devastating earthquake. A huge earthquake can have significant economic, social and political impact to the country. Thus, sharing capacities and resources, scientific support decision making, use of proven innovative tools, and joint training can lead to improvement of cross border cooperation procedures of the Mechanism. Considering that Cyprus is an island it is an excellent opportunity to test the Mechanism’s capabilities in responding in an area without having the possibility of access via land. Another big challenge will be testing the Republic’s National Plans for earthquakes and HNS. The exercise will consist of multiple scenarios that can be the result of a devastating earthquake. It will be mostly concentrated to the Request and Receiving (HNS) of foreign assistance, Search and Rescue Operations under collapsed buildings or other environments affected by the earthquake (Cultural heritage sites, roads, bridges, water dams, Cultural heritage sites etc.) and the testing of coordination and response capabilities of all teams under an environment where many critical infrastructures (airports, hospitals etc.) have been overwhelmed, damaged or even completely destroyed. Finally, it will be a great challenge for our newly registered into ECPP, INSARAG classified Light USAR team to test its strengths alongside other teams