Cuba to conduct anti-disaster drill

CRI-English.com via Xinhua: Cuban authorities are preparing to conduct a nationwide anti-disaster drill aimed at taking stock of existing measures and heightening disaster awareness among the population, officials said Saturday.

The May 19-20 drill, the 26th of its kind and code-named Meteoro 2012, will help to train people how to respond in case of such disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, forest fires and exotic diseases, officials said.

The exercise aims to raise the country's disaster preparedness and review the measures set for state agencies and institutions to cope with natural and industrial disasters, said Colonel Miguel Angel Puig, chief of the Operations Department of Cuba's National Civil Defense.

Puig said the drill would be focused on reassessing the measures to protect human lives and key economic targets in case of different kinds of disasters.

The maneuvers will also include assessing the evacuation processes of the population in areas susceptible to quakes or tsunamis, he said.

Puig stressed that Cuba's civil defense system is based on serious and complex risk studies on the threats for the Caribbean island country, which is prone to frequent hurricanes and to earthquakes in its eastern provinces, and suffers from the impact of climate change....