UNESCO warns of tsunami 260 km from Bulgaria (Graphics)

Take off they will be Istanbul, Alexandria and Marseille in the future 30 years

A tsunami could soon be a major problem in Europe, UNESCO has warned. There is almost a 100% chance that in the next 30 years, waves more than a meter high will hit large cities located in or around the Mediterranean, such as Istanbul, Marseille and Alexandria. The Turkish metropolis is located less than 300 km from the Bulgarian border.

The risk of a tsunami in Mediterranean coastal communities is expected to increase due to rising sea levels. Communities in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, where tsunamis are more common, are aware of the dangers of natural disasters. However, in other coastal areas, including around the Mediterranean,

the appearance of similar destructive waves is often

underestimated, emphasize by UNESCO.

And they warn that by next year, five high-risk communities in the Mediterranean region will join 40 other tsunami-ready towns and cities in 21 countries. In addition to Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul, the list includes Cannes and Chipiona, a city on the Spanish Atlantic coast near Cadiz.

The “Tsunami Ready” program is part of a broader UNESCO effort ahead of the UN Oceans Conference in Lisbon next week. The aim is to ensure that all vulnerable communities know what to do in the event of this natural disaster by 2030.

“The 2004 and 2011 tsunamis were a wake-up call,” said Bernardo Aliaga, a leading UNESCO expert on the subject, quoted by the British Guardian.

“We have come a long way since 2004. Today we are safer. But there are gaps in readiness and we need to improve. We need to make sure that the warnings are understood by visitors and communities in these areas, “he said.

The Indian Ocean tsunami just after Christmas in 2004 was the deadliest in history.

It killed about 230,000 people c 14 countries

In 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which reached nearly 40 meters, killed 18,000 people in Japan.

Since the unprecedented tragedy in the Indian Ocean in 2004, the UNESCO-led Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has picked up 125 warning signals.

12 water mass monitoring centers have been set up, covering most of the oceans.

Five of them are responsible for the areas around the Mediterranean Sea and the Northeast Atlantic, ie. monitor the areas around Greece, Turkey, Italy, France and Portugal.

“The risk of a tsunami is underestimated in most places,” Aliaga said. According to him, the events are not very frequent, and the real fear of them is not passed from one generation to another. “We need to spread the word,” he added.

“In the Mediterranean there is no sea doubt about

this: is not the question if, and when will happened “

On October 16, 1979, a tsunami caused by a landslide hit the coast of Nice and killed a dozen people. Most recently, in 2020, the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean Sea was also hit by a tsunami.

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