The Government of Nicaragua announced this Wednesday the start of updating its plans to deal with disasters, especially those that are related to nature, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, among others.
The update will begin in rural neighborhoods and communities, with the aim of making them better prepared to face calamities, indicated the representatives of the National System for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Attention (Sinapred), and the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (Inifom ), through official media.
“More than 10,600 neighborhoods and communities will be carrying out this task, and from the mayors’ offices, we will be carrying out the necessary actions,” said the executive director of Inifom, Iván Lacayo.
Additionally, 45,000 state officials, as well as 50,000 teachers and 2,000 students, will participate in the campaign to update disaster plans, said Sinapred co-director Guillermo González.
“We are working to strengthen the Community Response Brigades, in coordination with the institutions, from the community,” said the vice president of the country, Rosario Murillo.
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Nicaragua has disaster prevention and response plans since 1998, when Hurricane Mitch caused one of the greatest calamities in Nicaraguan history, with a balance of between 2,000 and 4,000 deaths.
The Nicaraguan territory is considered “multi-threat”, since, in addition to hurricanes, its geography exposes it to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, floods, landslides, among other natural phenomena.
The most recent of these disasters was Hurricane Julia, which hit Nicaragua on October 9 as a category 1 hurricane on the Shaffir-Simson scale.
Local authorities did not report deaths, but the destruction was estimated at more than 300 million dollars.
Nicaragua holds several disaster drills each year. Sinapred plans to run a simulation on March 31, in commemoration of the earthquake that destroyed Managua on that date in 1931, the first of two that devastated the Nicaraguan capital in the 20th century.
