COVALEX Webinar: Emergency Management System (EMS) of Greece

This presentation was part of a webinar conducted by the project COVALEX. Evaggelos Aggelopoulos from the Disaster Planning and Management Directorate at the General Secretariat for Civil Protection, Greece spoke about the utilisation and participation of volunteers in real incidents.

He presented the March 2021 Thessaly Earthquake sequence (which caused a lot of damage in the region) as his first case study. Right after the earthquake, the EODYA volunteer group for rescue and health missions started operating in the affected region, not only looking for possible victims but also recording the damage.

Storm Daniel in September 2023 (which also caused a lot of damage and a huge loss of livestock) served as another case study and Mr Aggelopoulos went through the different disaster management phases to illustrate the case. After an emergency weather warning forecast was issued, the volunteers were informed about the forecast via email. A team was formed, and the necessary equipment prepared. The team was deployed after a request in the district of Domokos in the Central Region of Greece and were coordinated by the Chief of the local fire brigade. Some of the problems the volunteers encountered included the interruption of transportation and polluted water.

At the end of his presentation, Mr Aggelopoulos pointed out new challenges in disaster response due to the effects of climate change (i.e., disasters becoming more frequent and severe): missions are becoming more complex, there is a growing need to coordinate assistance (and accept this kind of help) as well as a lack of equipment/training etc.