A large-scale exercise on water contamination incident management was organized for the first time in Cyprus by the Center of Excellence and Innovation "Koios" of the University of Cyprus and the Civil Defence of Cyprus, during which technologies developed by the PathoCERT project were tested and evaluated.

The scenario of the exercise was based on disaster response as a consequence of an earthquake in the Limassol area and includes simulation of rescue incidents and investigation of water contamination near the Germasogeia dam and in areas of the Amathos riverbed, as well as an evacuation incident in the community of Finikaria.

The Water Board of Limassol, the Water Development Department, the Sala and the Police participated in the exercise.

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The scenario

The scenario includes a large earthquake that has occurred today at 5:30 in the morning. According to information received from the Geological Survey Department, the earthquake had a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale and the epicenter of the earthquake was located 12km of Limassol and a focal depth of 30km. Initial information indicates that the earthquake was felt within a radius of 100 km around the epicenter. There are aftershocks all over the island with most of the damage caused on the south coast and in the interior. Less damage has been caused on the eastern, north and west coasts. There are also reports of injuries.

At 6:00 an aftershock occurs 10 km north of Limassol causing more damage to infrastructure and panic among residents. There are reports of damage to the sewerage network, dams and the water supply network, mainly in the area of Germasogeia. Landslides in this community also caused several injuries. The Government has declared a state of emergency with full mobilization of all essential services and search and rescue teams of the Civil Defence.

Consequences of the earthquake

There were landslides in the Germasogeia reservoir resulting in multiple infrastructure failures and damage to the sewerage network of the area.

A transport vehicle with an unknown possible contaminant load falls into the tank after a collision with another vehicle, causing its cargo to be channeled into the water. At the same time, a fisherman's vehicle with a passenger is crushed by a rock, causing the fisherman to end up inside the dam and injured after an explosion of a sewer pipe.

In the riverbed water filtration from the sewer pipe of the borehole houses. In the community of Karyes, several people have been damaged by landslides and several people have been injured