The first day of “Minoa” in Crete with a good grade – Today Heraklion and Lassithi are tested with 7.2 Richter and a tsunami (vid, pics)

Landslides, entrapment, evacuation of buildings and schools, injuries from the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Chania yesterday… The reason, of course, is the earthquake protection exercise codenamed “Minoas”, which started yesterday and will continue today in Crete, in the presence of the Minister of Civil Protection Vassilis Kikilia.

Mr. Kikilias, in his statements, said that this exercise, which is the largest ever implemented in the country, was an exhortation by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself, in order to identify possible mistakes, omissions and gaps, and to be dealt with.
“We have to prepare for all scenarios. Of course, we wish and hope that it will never be necessary, but in case it is necessary, there should have been real exercises, in which everyone participates and we have tried to improve as much as possible”, said Mr. Kikilias, adding that “above all it is the value of human life.”

Once a year

Vassilis Kikilias also stated that the exercise is institutionalized and will take place in a different region of the country once a year and that the important element is “that it is a realistic exercise in the field”, as, as he emphasized, “the goal is not to congratulate each other , but to make it an exercise in which we hope that in some parts we will have difficulty or fail, that weaknesses will be seen, so that we can incorporate them in the conclusions, correct ourselves and become better”.
The Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection also referred to the particularities of Crete that make the implementation of the exercise demanding and difficult, pointing out: “I will eagerly wait to see the conclusions, to see in terms of interoperability how we all worked together and what remains to be improved” .

In his greeting, Mr. Kikilias mentioned that “the challenges are multiple” and that with the climate crisis we are seeing situations and extreme phenomena that we could not imagine in the past.

The purpose of the exercise is to contribute to the reduction of the seismic risk in Crete through a series of coordinated actions, in accordance with what is provided for in the General Plan for Confronting Emergencies and Managing the Consequences of the “Engelados 2” Earthquake of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection. In addition, the exercise aims to improve both emergency and crisis management plans, as well as the coordination of services and the process of gathering and evaluating information. In addition, as has been pointed out, through the exercise the aim is to train all agencies, to strengthen readiness and interoperability, to include volunteer groups in the planning, as well as to raise awareness among the population.

Central agencies (ministries, central organizations), the Region of Crete, the Decentralized Administration of Crete, the primary OTAs of Crete, voluntary organizations, regional and local agencies, the Technical Chamber of Greece, ADMIE, telecommunications agencies, structures are participating in the exercise Health, port and airport management bodies, tourist structures, the Regional Directorate of Education of Crete, all the school complexes of Crete, the Antiquities Tax Offices, etc.

“There are issues we need to resolve”

More than 60 agencies participate in the exercise and its planning, among other things, includes approximately 75 episodes, across the spectrum of risks arising from seismic activities, as stated by the president of the Antiseismic Planning and Protection Organization, professor of Dynamic Tectonics Applied Geology and of Natural Disaster Management of Efthymi Lekka.

“The mechanism’s response so far is satisfactory”, Mr. Lekkas said yesterday afternoon in his statements to the Mass Media, noting however that “there are also issues that we need to resolve”.
“From the beginning, I explained that the exercise does not aim to succeed, but that such a large exercise aims to indicate the problems and weaknesses we have, so that we can improve them”, noted Mr. Lekkas.
The regional governor of Crete, Stavros Arnautakis, who presided over the Regional Coordinating Body operating in Heraklion and specifically in the Cultural Center, stated that the exercise is progressing normally, with the presence and participation of all the services and agencies involved.

Second day of testing – 7.2 magnitude hits Heraklion today

Twenty-four hours after this 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Chania yesterday, a new, larger earthquake of 7.2 degrees outside Heraklion, which will also affect P.E. Heraklion and P.E. Lasithiou.
“It’s a scenario of escalating difficulty, it’s a scenario that everyone will exercise and the goal of the exercise is essentially to test interoperability, readiness, structures, means, equipment, volunteers. It is the largest exercise that will take place at the national level. Approximately 100,000 residents of Crete will take part, of which approximately 60,000-70,000 are school children. All the schools of Crete will practice. Schools will be evacuated during the seismic actions and then of course there will be evacuations in public buildings and in private businesses, large hotels and settlements”, noted Mr. Lekkas.

Alarm in Chania for a 6.4 magnitude earthquake!

With the participation of 30 agencies, hundreds of public employees, volunteers and workers in emergency services, the “Minoas 2024” exercise was held yesterday in Chania, the largest operational field exercise ever planned in the country, with the aim of organizing the response to the effects a strong earthquake.

Collapses and evacuations of buildings, rescues of citizens and falling rocks were the main parts of the scenario, while the instructions that reached the coordination center that was set up in the Vice-region of Chania were continuous.
It was 10:15 in the morning, when the citizens of Chania were notified via 112 about the “Minoas 2024” exercise. An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the Richter scale centered northeast of Chania, off Souda, caused, based on the scenario, great destruction and mobilized all the emergency services, all the Municipalities, the Vice-region and voluntary organizations.

The largest operational field exercise ever carried out in the country was a success: Public services and schools were evacuated, while the injured were freed from a collapsed building…

The city’s Town Hall was evacuated and the workers were taken to Kotzambasi Square, the nearest designated place of refuge. Internal evaluators were appointed by the Municipality of Chania, who undertook to evaluate all the structures of the Municipality. The City Hall, as well as the school buildings and municipal services were checked by engineers, as the response to the crisis required checking their stability.

“During this time, we did all the necessary actions to guard the building with volunteers and the Police, control of the building by the competent engineers, orders were given to check all the school buildings, to ensure that there is no issue of safety. In normal, real conditions, the children should be handed over to the parents, or to a social service,” said the Deputy Mayor for Civil Protection and Climate Change Mr. Manolis Lekkas.

In the Vice-region of Chania, after the inspection of the building by engineers, a coordination center was set up, which was attended by the vice-region governor, Mr. Nikos Kalogeris, the responsible deputy mayor for Civil Protection and Climate Change, Mr. Manolis Lekkas, the police director of Chania, Mr. Giorgos Mastrantonakis, the commander Fire Services of the prefecture Mr. Xenophon Tsilimigakis and the head of Civil Protection of the Chania Regional Unit Mr. Yiannis Verykokidis. Also present were representatives of all the Municipalities and dozens of services, who received instructions for the coordination of actions in their areas of responsibility.

“We are in contact with the entire prefecture, we are constantly receiving incidents, as we would receive if there was a major disaster, the phenomena are not limited to one area, they are varied and are everywhere. The hospital is dealing with the incidents, it does not have a problem with the flow that is transferred, now we will also ask for tents because we also have homeless people”, said the deputy regional governor, Mr. Nikos Kalogeris, at 1:00 p.m., with the exercise in full swing.

Primary and secondary schools, as well as higher education units, were evacuated.

Trapped in the Makropoulos camp

At the city level, the focus of the exercise was the Markopoulou camp, where a building collapsed and trapped people were inside. Fire officials cordoned off the area and began operations to locate and extricate the injured from the debris. The intervention of EKAB was immediate, whose ambulances rushed to the scene. Rescuers provided first aid on the spot and then transported the injured to the Chania Hospital.

At the same time, the authorities were informed of rockfalls in the Samaria gorge and the Topolia tunnel, which was even closed until the end of the exercise. The role of the Social Service of the Municipality of Chania was important, which, according to the deputy mayor for Civil Protection and Climate Change Mr. Manolis Lekka, was called to assist by providing aid, water and food to the affected, but also with psychological support.

A camp was set up for the earthquake victims

“We will monitor the records of the evaluators, we will see the critical points, we will see where improvements are needed and all of this will be included in the report that we will send to the ministry”, underlined the mayor of Chania, Mr. Panagiotis Simandirakis, who described the exercise as absolutely necessary , as, as he noted, “there have been phenomena in the past that have shown that we need more organization both at the level of executives and at the level of employees”.
The “Minoas 2024” exercise was completed in Chania late in the afternoon with the setting up of a camp for the earthquake victims at the Monachi Elia stadium.