Emergency Ministry plans to update state emergency notification system

The Ministry of Emergency Situations plans to conduct a fundamental reconstruction of the state emergency notification system during the period from 2013 to 2015, Minister of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan Vladimir Bozhko said at the Government session today, according to Pm.kz.

"The project embraces 14 regional centers, Astana and Almaty, 37 cities of the national importance and 168 district centers of the country," the Minister noted.

One of the main issues requiring solution is informing the population of rural areas. "The existing system of centralized emergency notification is designed for informing big cities and industrial facilities in peaceful and military time. It doesn't embrace the majority of rural areas. Such situation should be changed taking into consideration modern realms," the Minister said.

Innovative solutions are currently introduced in the sphere of notification. Thus, modern means of monitoring of the most dangerous section of the dam were introduced at the Koksarai counter regulator. A system of automated control over avalanche situation at the avalanche catchment No 9 along Medeo - Shymbulak road was introduced. The system can provide information about avalanching one day prior to the avalanche.

"Special attention is paid to the issues of organization of alerting and informing of the population by mobile operators. Currently, a technical solution on sending alerting information by means of SMS was fulfilled in Astana, Almaty and Zhambyl region," the Minister said.

This system of alerting population was tested in Astana and neighboring districts of Akmola region on June 21-22 this year.