Diaz-Canel urged to increase seismic culture

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Nov 15 (ACN) Miguel Diaz-Canel, President of the National Defense Council, urged to increase the seismic culture, during his working visit to the Geodynamic Observatory of the National Seismological Service (Cenais by its Spanish acronym) in order to evaluate the danger of earthquakes in the country, the state of the seismological and tsunami monitoring systems, and aspects of risk management, after the earthquakes that occurred last Sunday, November 10.

In the scientific institution, which is dedicated to monitoring the island region, and accompanied by Roberto Morales Ojeda, member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), and the highest authorities of the eastern province, the head of state learned about the 2,842 aftershocks occurred until Thursday afternoon, between one and 4.5 degrees of magnitude.

The Head of the National Seismological Service, Enrique Arango, gave a detailed explanation on the operation of the Network of Stations and updated on the records, the seismic standard, information channels to the population and aspects of risk management such as the resistance of buildings.
Before the delegation, Arango specified that the ground of greater intensity of Sunday's tremors is balancing, and assured the follow-up and minute-by-minute observation of that area.

The first secretary of the PCC inquired about the possible threats to the nation based on the monitoring of earth tremors, the height of the waves that may represent a notable danger of tsunami and the most vulnerable areas, such as those located south of the province of Granma.

Elias Hernandez, territorial director of Control of the Ministry of Informatics and Communications of the region showed the technology available to respond to anomalous situations of this and other typologies.

Regarding the preliminary damages in Santiago de Cuba, Diaz-Canel was interested in the 420 houses, four warehouses, three landslides and six affected schools, in addition to the cracks in the North Children's Hospital Juan de la Cruz Martinez, which do not compromise the functioning of this health care center.

At the end of the day, the National Defense Council held a check-up meeting, where the progress of the recovery in the different provinces affected by the meteorological phenomena Oscar, Rafael and the earthquakes of the weekend was analyzed by videoconference.

Diaz-Canel urged to constantly offer information to learn about seismic and meteorological culture, to know the measures to take in case of disasters and above all to increase the perception of risk in the Cuban population.