Greek team to train Cypriots for earthquake emergencies

Staff Reporter

AN EARTHQUAKE rescue team from Greece will come to Cyprus in October to train the first of several such Civil Defence teams planned for the Republic, Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou said yesterday.

The prototype Cyprus team will be assembled “immediately,” he said, and be largely drawn from Fire Service staff.

It will also include government doctors, private-sector civil engineers and personnel from the island’s “paramedic staff”, he said.

This immediately posed problems for the emergency rescue team’s formation, since Cyprus does not have a single paramedic ambulance attendant on the island.

A plan to train paramedics exists. But it has been gathering dust for years in the Health and Finance Ministries for lack of government interest in spending the £5 million needed to create an island-wide paramedic ambulance service with new vehicles and separate headquarters.

Nevertheless, Justice Minister Nicos Koshis is to fly to Greece in the next few days to discuss with his opposite number the forming quake rescue teams in Cyprus, and to arrange for the Greek team trainers to visit the island, Christodoulou said.

Christodoulou made the disclosures at a joint news conference with Koshis yesterday afternoon, following talks between the two ministers about improving the earthquake readiness of the island’s Civil Defence Department.

Koshis said forming the rescue team would not threaten the Department’s budget, since only a few “extra staff” would be hired to complement the Fire Service staff to go on the team. However, any staff hired would be permanent employees, he added.

The Justice Minister said it was not possible now to estimate the cost of creating the prototype team, but said a tally of the costs would be completed in October.

Besides hiring few new employees, the government will hold down costs of the teams by using equipment already in Civil Defence stocks, instead of buying new gear, Christodoulou said.