The Ministry of Education conducts earthquake preparedness checks

The Ministry of Education is conducting emergency checks educational institutions throughout the country to determine the strength of buildings housing primary and secondary schools, gymnasiums, higher education institutions, and sports facilities.

Considering that the age of the vast majority of educational buildings is 40 years or more, it was considered necessary to conduct a survey and rigorous assessment of their building structures based on current seismic codes. Minister of Education, Religion and Sports Kyriakos Pierrakakis informed Prime Minister Mitsotakis of the results of the checks.

The review was considered necessary because the data and frequency of earthquakes show that, if necessary, the state machine must work, despite what happened in floods and fires, and be able to withstand to avoid tragedies.

Given the devastation caused by the floods, significant attention was paid during the inspection to the analysis of the infrastructure of school buildings in Thessaly, but it was found that only nine schools had problems with structural strengthening and only three had serious damage requiring immediate action, i.e. transfer of students and use of other buildings. An interesting fact is that 35 schools for children with “special needs” in Thessaly will be restored through private donations.

It should be noted that the aging of hundreds of school buildings across the country has forced the political leadership of the Ministry of Education, Religion and Sports to begin the process of immediately preparing a national plan for the construction of new schools.

The Ministry is already interacting with the Technical Inspectorate and KTYP (formerly the School Construction Organization) to draw up a special dossier and call for tenders for the construction of schools. And all this at a time when Dutch researcher Frank Hoogerbets is ringing the bell for our country, talking about the possibility of an earthquake with a magnitude higher than 7 points on the Richter scale. The Dutchman, who “predicted” earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February 2023 with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.7 on the Richter scale, respectively, “showed” with his post on X Greek arc, How location of the next major earthquake.

Greek arc

Greece, and specifically the “Greek Arc,” is located in an area that is highly vulnerable to seismic activity and has historically always been exposed to the elements. The first historically recorded earthquake in Rhodes was the earthquake 226 BC. It is famous for destroying the large statue of the Colossus of Rhodes. After the earthquake, the statue lay in place for almost eight centuries before being sold by invaders.

In total, on the territory of Greece in the Aegean Sea 20 active tectonic faults, which can cause an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7 on the Richter scale. At the same time, over the past 3 years, 2 more new active ones have woken up tectonic faults previously unknown to scientists.

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