Week 16: Final Blog

Week 16: Greece

    Greece is threatened by many natural hazards due to its geographical location, as well as other factors. The biggest threat, and most prominent hazardous occurrence in Greece, would be earthquakes. Greece one of the most seismically active countries in Europe, due to its placement near multiple tectonic plates. Greece and neighboring countries lie near massive fault lines that constantly trigger earthquakes. It is important for Greek people to be aware of the hazard, as well as educate themselves on how to protect themselves during the event of emergency. While the citizens educate themselves, the government must take it into their hands to stay up to date on earthquake safe building construction, and take into consideration possible damage control efforts.  Luckily, most of Greece's earthquakes are fairly mild, leading to not a lot of yearly damage or harm, but the risk is always high. At any moment one of the earthquakes may not be so mild. 

     With the constant risk of earthquakes, the first thing I would do, is build a solid foundation of funding designated specifically for earthquake prevention, and to prepare for damage control after earthquakes. Having a solid base of government funding can only help the response to an a earthquake by having the money on hand right away, specifically for the purpose of earthquakes. Next I would establish a nonprofit, government funded organization specifically to monitor the early warning systems, and have constant seismic monitoring to hopefully be able to predict and catch the disasters before they happen. The next step would be updating earthquake training and safety protocols, along with updating the building regulations to be earthquake safe especially in the high risk zones of the country. 

 

    Many of the country's areas of concern happen to not be on the mainland. The Greek islands are actually the most high risk areas. The Island of Crete is often victim of the earthquakes form the tectonic plate collisions in the Mediterranean sea. The believed to be most seismically active part of the country specifically lies along Western Greece, from Corfu to Western Crete. Other island's of concern would be the Western Islands of Lefkada and Kefalonia, which have found themselves susceptible to devastating earthquakes caused by the nearby tectonic plates. 

 

    On mainland Greece, the concern lies on the Western Coast, but the entire country must always be  prepared. The frequency of earthquakes may seem intimidating, but the fact is most of them are harmless and pose little threat. Despite that, the country must always be prepared, because the chance of one of these frequent earthquakes being detrimental and damaging, is drastically increased because of the sheer frequency of occurrence. The Western Coast, as well as the Islands near the Hellenic Arc, are of the most risk to a major earthquake disaster in Greece. 

Hellenic Arc marked in yellow. 

     Greece already has a number of preparedness and response strategies and programs, designed to alleviate and reduce the risk that faces the nation. The have specifically created the GSCP, General Secretariat for Civil Protection, which consists of multipole organizations and authoritative bodies, who's goal is to protect the people from disaster. Each branch has its own specialty, such as government construction organizations that approve and sanction building regulations, to bodies like the fire services and police force. My own personal recommendation would to be increase the funding, support, and abilities of branches specifically tailored to predicting, measuring, preventing, and classifying potential earthquakes in general, so they can then guide the other services in how to prepare, prevent, and respond to the impending quake. 

Greece Earthquake Map (1000CE to June 2020)

     

    When constructing my house in Greece, taking into consideration the quantity of earthquakes, I would build my house in Northern Greece. Although everywhere is generally high risk, Northern Greece sees a far less number of earthquakes than other regions. As well as that, it has much beauty to offer from great beaches, to the famous Mount Olympus.

Sources:

https://greekreporter.com/2022/12/29/areas-earthquake-risk-greece/

https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/what/civil-protection/national-disaster-management-system/greece_en

https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/europe-earthquake-hazard-map#:~:text=The%20highest%20earthquake%20hazard%20is,with%20another%2C%20developing%20shear%20stresses.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/best-countries-at-reducing-disaster-risk.html

https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/3143#:~:text=The%20central%20Aegean%20and%20northern,of%20the%20Atlas%20Earthquake%20Catalogue.