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Russia among countries vulnerable to earthquakes - UN report

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  • Russia among countries vulnerable to earthquakes - UN report

    ITAR-TASS News Agency
    TASS
    January 18, 2005 Tuesday 4:34 AM Eastern Time

    Russia among countries vulnerable to earthquakes - UN report

    By Sergei Mingazhev

    KOBE (Japan), January 18 - Russia is among countries with a high
    relative vulnerability to earthquakes, said the UN's report "Disaster
    Risk Reduction: A Development Task" that was circulated at an
    international conference on disaster reduction opening the Japanese
    city of Kobe on Tuesday.

    About 6.5 thousand people died in a strong earthquake in Kobe ten
    years ago.

    The report cites results of different studies that had been conducted
    under the UN's programmes on the basis of information about natural
    disasters over the past two decades.

    One of the studies sought to develop models of risk for different
    categories of countries with consideration for their geographic
    peculiarities and economic factors.

    The countries with a middle level of development and a significant
    percent of the urban population such as Turkey and Russia have been
    categorised as group with a high relative vulnerability, along with
    the countries like Armenia and Guinea, in which earthquakes of an
    exceptional magnitude occurred during the study period, the report
    says.

    Iran, Afghanistan and India have been put in this category too.

    The term high relative vulnerability means not so much a high seismic
    danger in some area of a country as poor preparedness for
    earthquakes, because of which relatively mild tremors can cause
    numerous victims and large-scale destruction.

    Russia's most dangers place for life in terms of seaquakes and
    tsunamis are the whole Kurile Range and Kamchatka, said deputy
    director of the Russian Hydrometeorology Centre Alexander Frolov, who
    attends the conference in Kobe.

    He told Itar-Tass that if the epicentre of December's 9-magnitude
    seaquake was located not near Sumatra but offshore of Kamchatka, the
    height of the tsunami would have reached 20 meters, or two times more
    than in Indonesia, because of the configuration pattern of its
    coasts.

    "If it is taken into account that our warning system works within
    10-15 minutes after an earthquake, 30-35 minutes would have been left
    for the evacuation of people," Frolov said.

    He stressed the need for additional measures in the field of rapid
    reaction to catastrophic events.
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