The National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) annually promotes the nationwide Public Awareness Exercise for Seismic Risk, called A TERRA TREME (www.aterratreme.pt). This year, the 12th Edition will take place on November 5th, at 11:05 am, coinciding with World Tsunami Awareness Day.

According to the statement issued by ANEPC, the objective of this exercise is to train the population to know how to act before, during and after an earthquake, namely to know the preventive measures and self-protection behaviours to adopt to protect themselves.

The exercise itself involves practicing 3 simple gestures that can make a difference to those who practice them in the event of an earthquake. The action takes place over 1 minute, during which participants, individually or collectively (families, schools, companies, public, private or associative institutions), must perform the 3 self-protection gestures: Drop – Cover – Wait.

In addition to the school-age population, whose participation in the initiative has been significant, ANEPC aims to gradually expand, year after year, the reflection and debate on the topic of seismic risk and participation in this initiative to other sectors of civil society.

It should be noted that this exercise is an act of citizenship. A civic commitment that requires everyone to actively engage in the pursuit of their own protection and safety and that of all those around us. Therefore, ANEPC considers it strategic that organizations – public, private and associative – also commit to this collective goal, involving themselves in the process of increasing their level of preparedness and reaction to Earthquakes and/or Tsunamis.

In this sense, the ANEPC Algarve Regional Command invites the entire population to participate in this public initiative.