The mayor of Lisbon clarified this Tuesday that the “excellent preparation” of the city for the seismic risk has to do with the teams of civil protection, firefighters and engineers that the Portuguese capital has to respond to disasters.
Regarding earthquakes, my statement has to do with the excellent preparation of our civil protection team, the excellent preparation of our firefighters and the excellent preparation of our engineers,” said Carlos Moedas (PSD), after being questioned at the meeting. of the Lisbon Municipal Council. Assembly of the representatives of the PEV and PAN on the pronouncement made on the seismic risk in the city.
The mayor of Lisbon assured this Wednesday that the Portuguese capital is “extremely prepared” for the possibility of an earthquake like the one that occurred on Monday in Turkey and Syria, including a tsunami warning system.
I would like to leave here some guarantees about the preparation that Lisbon has in relation to possible earthquakes, and we all know that we live in an area of the country where these earthquakes can occur. As a civil engineer and as someone who worked in this area, our city is extremely prepared after the 1980s, unfortunately not in the older neighborhoods, but very, very prepared in terms of engineering and construction,” stated Carlos Moedas (PSD ), on Wednesday, in a decentralized public session of the chamber.
This Tuesday, at the assembly meeting, the PSD mayor sought to qualify his statements by considering that “many times they are completely taken out of context.”
My statements had to do with very simple points about our preparation and that I reiterate: We have the best fire brigades in the world and it has been demonstrated, and it has been demonstrated, and I leave here a tribute to what they are doing in Syria and Turkey. We have an exemplary civil protection service and what we experienced in the floods allows me to say that we are very well prepared”, he pointed out.
As a civil engineer, Carlos Moedas highlighted that his experience allows him to state that the construction of the new areas of the city is “fully prepared“, reinforcing that there are “excellent seismic engineers” in the country.
The situation of our seismic engineering, our regulations on seismic engineering, is not comparable to what is happening, for example, in Turkey or Syria, and in that sense we are very well prepared. Obviously, if a catastrophe happens, it is a catastrophe, and we always have to be prepared”, the mayor stressed.
The municipality of Lisbon has already distributed more than 1,000 ‘kits’ in schools and has a municipal program to promote the seismic resilience of the stock of private and municipal buildings and municipal urban infrastructure, called ReSist.
We have excellent services, we have excellent preparation, but it is a continuous job”, highlighted the mayor, adding that in the center of the city, that is, in the historic areas, “there is not enough seismic engineering”, because they are very old buildings .
The Councilor for Urban Planning, Joana Almeida (independently elected by the “Novos Tempos” coalition — PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança), revealed that the reports of seismic vulnerability of buildings “will be delivered prior approval of the architecture”, as a risk prevention measure, indicating that the City Council together with the Higher Technical Institute (IST) is carrying out a study with the analysis of 100 buildings, specifically 50 homes and 50 public facilities, from different construction periods, in order to to have June results
From there, draw conclusions about the vulnerability of buildings based on their construction times and the quality of the materials”, said the Town Planning councilor, stating that “all buildings built before 1958 have, from the outset, a greater seismic vulnerability than buildings with other, more recent construction materials.
As part of the ReSist programme, resilience sheets for buildings in Lisbon are being prepared internally. The chamber is also developing with IST a matrix to assess the seismic resistance of buildings, the information of which will form part of the resilience sheets. In addition, a vulnerability map of the city’s buildings is being prepared with IST, training for 100 technicians and inspection of 100 municipal buildings.
Source: Observadora
