COUNTRY: PORTUGAL

ORGANIZATION: MINDSHIFT TALENT ADVISORY

DATE OF THE DEBATE: 21/06/2022

LOCATION OF THE DEBATE: Lisbon

LINK TO THE MONITORED PROJECT ON THE NATIONAL OPEN DATA PLATFORM: HERE

EVENT DESCRIPTION: 

The sixth debate of the monitoring process for the project “Implementation of a tsunami warning and alert system in the Tagus estuary” was held in Lisbon, at the premises of the Centro de Estudos e Desenvolvimento Regional e Urbano (CEDRU). This session was attended by three technical officers of the Serviço Municipal de Proteção Civil da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Civil Protecion Services), who made a brief presentation about the implementation of this project in the municipality of Lisbon. The participation of these technicians proved to be very useful for the monitoring group to collect more data on the project. It was thus possible to understand which actions are still in progress in terms of raising the population’s awareness about the project, as well as about the risks the city of Lisbon faces in the face of an earthquake followed by a tsunami. This technical team stressed that in the scope of their functions, training and awareness are of great importance. When it comes to the subject of earthquakes, there are always barriers when approaching the topic. Firstly, because it is a reality distant from the majority of the Portuguese population. This because few people have memory of having lived through an earthquake. Secondly, because the few people who still remember the 1969 earthquake often prefer not to talk about the subject. On 28 February 1969, between 03:41 and 03:45, Portugal was hit by the biggest earthquake since the 1755 earthquake. The south, namely the Algarve, and the Lisbon region were the areas hardest hit by the earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, which was also felt in Spain and Morocco. Thirteen people died, two as a direct result of the quake and 11 indirectly, and several dozen were injured. According to the civil protection experts, it was only after the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia that part of the population began to be aware of this issue. Having said this, we could verify the importance of the Serviço Municipal de Proteção Civil da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa in the awareness campaigns foreseen in the monitored project. This team also stressed that such awareness-raising work, due to their experience, should be done continuously in the Schools at all levels of education. Because children are the best prepared to deal with different issues and assimilate new information, besides being excellent vehicles for the transmission of information. During this session, a final balance of the monitoring process was also made, in order to evaluate the whole monitoring process and consolidate the information to close the monitoring report.