“The probability of a wave of one meter, therefore catastrophic, in the next thirty years, is very high there,” said the Executive Secretary of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission on Tuesday. >
Le Monde with AFP
UNESCO has decided to extend its tsunamis protection program to all risk areas worldwide by 2030, several thousand sites, the UN organization announced on Tuesday June 21, during a press conference.
The Tsunami Ready program is currently implemented in “more than 40 communities in 21 countries” located in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, said Vladimir Ryabinine, executive secretary of the intergovernmental oceanographic commission of the UNESCO. UNESCO now wishes to “ensure that 100 % of risky coastal populations are ready to react” against a tsunami. This program aims, in fact, to draw up an identification plan of the threat, to raise and prepare populations to deal with it.
If about 70 % of tsunamis are caused by an earthquake – like the one that occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004, responsible for more than 210,000 dead – they can also come to the result of volcanic eruptions, like the one that touched the Tonga, in the Pacific, last January.
risks in the Mediterranean
And if the majority of tsunamis listed to date affect the coastal populations of the Pacific and Indian oceans, UNESCO now considers that all maritime regions are at risk, including that of the Mediterranean. “The probability of a wave of one meter, therefore catastrophic, in the next thirty years, is very high,” said Mr. Ryabinine.
According to Bernardo Aliaga, an ocean expert at the UNESCO office, the Greek islands of Kos and Samos are prepared for this possibility. Alexandria, Egypt, also started to apply the program; Istanbul and Cannes work there, he explains.
“The general principle is that where there was a tsunami, there will be a tsunami,” said Aliaga. As in the Aegean Sea, or as that which occurred in 1908 in the Strait of Messina, which ravaged coastal cities. Experts are particularly attentive to the situation around the Stromboli volcano, in the Wind Islands, which has the distinction of being very active and close to the coasts of Sicily and the South of Italy.
The UNESCO program benefits from the support of the UN office for reducing the risk of disaster (UNDRR) and the European Union, as well as donor countries such as Australia, Japan, Norway and the United States.