Children evacuate Gordon Elementary School in Tel Aviv tsunami drill

By Brigitte Leoni

Tel Aviv 12 March 2019 –More than 130 000 children have taken part in the first national tsunami simulation ever done with schools in Israel.

Jointly organized by Israel's National Steering Committee for Earthquake Preparedness and the Ministry of Education, the tsunami simulation involved schools located on the 271 kms  of Israel coastlines considered as the areas most exposed to tsunami risk if an earthquake were to happen in the Meditarrean Sea.

The tsunami simulation was part of a wider national earthquake drill that was also organized today involving more than 2.5 million students throughout the country.

Tsunamis may be rare in Israel but its government is taking the risk seriously and investing in prevention.

“We are sitting in a seismic region and by the sea, two reasons to be alerted,” explained Mr. Amir Yahav, Director of the National Steering Committee for Earthquake Preparedness in Israel who organized and coordinated the national drills today with the police and all the services and institutions involved in emergency situations. “We do not know when the next tsunami will happen or where, but we prefer to be prepared rather than taken by surprise as happened in the past.”

Israel is located in the Mediterranean Sea where two tectonic plates, the Eurasian and the African, can converge and trigger a major earthquake and tsunami. The earthquake may not happen in Israel but in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus or Egypt; close enough to trigger tsunami waves on Israel’s shores. The last tsunami was recorded in 1956 and was the result of a large earthquake in Greek waters. Prior to that, tsunamis were also recorded near Acre in the 19th century and Caesarea in the 12th century.

“When people ask me why we are investing so much in these exercises, I just say to them that it is better to be 100 per cent prepared so citizens will know what to do if a real one happens,” said Ron Hulddai, Mayor of Tel Aviv, who attended the drill organized today in his city.

In addition to the exercise, a "distance learning in emergency" exercise was also conducted with schools during the all week providing students with online educational contents and interactive activities with local authorities.