Mr. Ahmad Sadeghi, Head of Crisis Management Organization of Tehran (TDMMO) was the other keynote speaker of the opening ceremony and underlined the vulnerable situation of Tehran in response to disaster management: “Tehran currently has 3268 hectare of old and vulnerable buildings, of which 15% of its population lives in them. For this reason, it should be noted that in the event of a crisis, more than one and a half million residents of Tehran in the early hours after the disaster are in danger. On the other hand, of 3,544 schools in Tehran, more than 1,000 schools are located near main and sub-fault lines. Organizing international researcher training courses can be an effective step in our preparedness to deal with natural disasters and crises.” he added.
Mr. Amirhossein Barmaki, the Head of OCHA explained the importance of such training and efforts: It took four years of coordination and negotiation to reach this stage, and now IRCS with the support of NDMO and MFA organized the first intentional training on USAR in Iran.
He pointed out the forming process of this workshop and said: This training is built based on an excellent experience of organizing the GARD training of 2017 just after the Kermanshah earthquake. UN is committed to support Iran in its accession to INSARAG and to create two heavy USAR national teams one for Tehran and another for the country.
“Austrian support has been crucial in this regard, as they provided some of the funding but most importantly the intentional technical expertise. This activity has the potential of becoming a long-term project with the support of Austria and EU.Also, the INSARAG guidelines are translated into Farsi and are available. “He said.
The head of UNOCHA mentioned the importance of regional response in the time of crisis and added: “The international community relies on Iran for regional response and even international assistance, and Iran having Intl USAR capacity is a great resource for the intentional community. OCHA has already supported Iran in attendance of three intentional INSARAG simulations and has sent a number of experts to intentional training courses, such as PREP and CMCOORD. OCHA is in negotiation with ECO organization to set up a regional response based on ASEAN AHA center and initial discussions have taken place recently.”/ |