[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Chungnam Province announced on the 16th that it will conduct an urgent inspection of the response system for earthquakes and tsunamis until the 20th of this month.
The inspection will be carried out independently by the province and 15 cities and counties. The main inspection items include whether earthquake action guidelines (manuals) and resident evacuation plans have been established, as well as regulations for operating regional disaster safety countermeasure headquarters at each emergency level.
The province and cities/counties plan to strengthen the evacuation system by checking the communication network so that residents can quickly evacuate to safe places such as schools, public stadiums, and parks in the event of an earthquake, and by improving the visibility of outdoor evacuation site signboards.
In addition, any deficiencies identified during the inspection process will be supplemented through separate plans.
The province will continue to inspect the management status of outdoor earthquake evacuation sites such as local schools and public stadiums twice a year, in the first and second halves of the year, and will also promote related campaigns to enhance residents' safety awareness.
Jo Won-gap, Director of the Provincial Autonomous Safety Office, said, "Earthquakes are natural disasters that are difficult to predict, but damage can be minimized through regular preparedness and evacuation drills. We will focus on preparing for emergencies by familiarizing ourselves with national action guidelines and identifying outdoor earthquake evacuation sites."
Meanwhile, the province and cities/counties are promoting a project to secure seismic performance of existing public facilities by investing 8.146 billion KRW in seismic performance evaluations and seismic reinforcement of 55 public facilities within the jurisdiction.
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