Otranto Tsunami Ready 18.04.23 Comune incontro Otranto Tsunami ready Comune 18.04.23 Primo incontro Tsunami Ready Otranto 18.04.23 Comune incontrjpegThe municipality of Otranto, in Lecce province, is joining the tsunami ready program. Photo shows some moments of the meeting held at the municipal headquarters on 04/18/23.

 

On April 18, 2023 in Otranto, Apulia, in the province of Lecce, the first meeting was held with some municipal and local Civil Protection representatives, the Apulia Region Civil Protection, and a delegation from the INGV Tsunami Alert Center to launch the Tsunami Ready program in the municipality of Otranto.

CAT-INGV researchers, during the meeting that took place at the municipal headquarters, introduced the indicators identified by UNESCO guidelines aimed at recognition as "Tsunami Ready communities".

The program is part of the AETHER project "Alliance for The Effective Transnational Handling Of Environmental Resources," (INTERREG V/A Greece-Italy Program 2014-2020), in which the Civil Protection Section of the Apulia Region is a partner. In fact, the project includes actions aimed at identifying common methodologies between public and private institutions for mitigating natural hazards, including concrete applications in the project pilot areas.

Otranto's municipal area lies on the coastal area extending most to the east into the Adriatic Sea, prominent from the Italian coastline. This area historically has been affected by the effects of strong earthquakes that occurred in neighboring areas, such as the 1783 earthquake, located in the northern Ionian Sea, which had estimated effects on the territory of intensity 7 (CPTI, 2015 v.4) and triggered a tsunami that affected the Apulia and Calabria coasts with documented effects in coeval historical sources (ITED, 2019).

The tsunami risk in this area is medium to high due to multiple related variables:

      1. to the hazard of the area exposed to the effects of seismogenic sources in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas
      2. To the vulnerability of residential buildings and tourism infrastructure adjacent to the coastal strip and in the flood zone
      3. to the large number of tourists who frequent the areas from the spring months through autumn.