Radio România Internațional

Tag: warning system

  • RO-ALERT extended to cover weather phenomena

    RO-ALERT extended to cover weather phenomena

    Fickle and
    unpredictable, weather has this year managed to spoil the mini-holiday
    Romanians had over Easter and May 1st, the International Labour Day.
    On Tuesday, the south of the country, Bucharest included, was affected by
    storms and heavy rain. According to a report drawn up by the General
    Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, more than one thousand firefighters had
    to be deployed in order to help local authorities and the population. They
    helped drain the water from the basements of several houses and public
    institutions and removed the trees and utility poles felled down by wind. In
    Calarasi County, a medium-size tornado forced a bus off the road and overturned
    it in a nearby field, leaving 12 people injured. The tornado, the second ever
    reported in Romania after the one in 2002, has also damaged dozens of houses. Central
    authorities have therefore decided that the RO-ALERT warning system should also
    be used to send warnings concerning severe weather. The measure was adopted by
    the Emergency Department of the Interior Ministry and the National Meteorological
    Administration. The head of the department, Raed Arafat, has stated that the
    legislation regulating the functioning of the RO-ALERT system has not been
    completed yet, but the system will issue new types of warning, by means of a
    procedure that will be finalized until Monday.


    Together
    with our colleagues from the National Meteorological Administration we have
    established certain situations, such as squalls turning into storms, which is a
    code red warning case, or code orange phenomena which can turn into code red
    situations and have a major impact. Also, people can be warned about hail
    storms and other extreme events that weather experts say are dangerous by means
    of a warning issued through the RO-ALERT system in the affected area. We also
    talked about taking into account the 112 calls from areas under such codes, where
    unpredictable situations occur, so the RO-ALERT system can be activated in
    those places too.


    For the
    information to be submitted promptly, a direct line will be set up between the
    General Inspectorate for Emergency situations and the National Weather Forecast
    Centre, as Elena Mateescu, the director of the National Meteorological
    Administration explains:


    Legislation
    must now be adapted in order for the National Meteorological Administration to
    observe certain procedures and regulations in force. By Monday we will have
    established the type of weather events to be covered by the RO-ALERT warning
    system, the thresholds that have an imminent potential of turning into
    dangerous situations in the respective areas.


    Specialists have
    warned that the RO-ALERT system is merely a warning system and it does not work
    like a ‘weather radar’ that identifies by itself weather phenomena or other
    dangerous situations.

  • September 17-23

    September 17-23

    Extreme weather phenomena- prevention measures


    The Romanian Government on Thursday decided to grant an 8 million Euro aid to cover the damages produced by violent storms in several counties in western, northern and central Romania. The funds will be used for repair works on schools, hospitals, police stations, churches and other public buildings. Last Sunday, a storm, which lasted only 15 minutes, left behind some 8 people dead and over 140 people injured, blew away roofs and street billboards, and damaged cars. Power outings were reported and localities were left without running water. Roads have been temporarily blocked. Railways have been severely affected. In the wake of Sundays storms, PM Mihai Tudose has announced its high time Romania had a modern warning system to alert the population against disasters, just like those in other European states. Just a couple of days later, bad weather has again taken parts of the country in its grip, sweeping Bucharest and 38 other localities. The storm took a toll of 3 lives. Gusty wind blew away roofs, and traffic was temporarily disrupted because of trees that fell on the roads.



    Romanias President Klaus Iohannis attending the UN General Assembly


    Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis, had a busy agenda during his six-day visit to the US, where he attended the UN General Assembly meeting. In a speech he delivered in a plenary session of the UN General Assembly in New York, the Romanian President underlined the need to strengthen the UN and to render it more effective, in order to be able to face current challenges. He said that Romania hails the reform of the UN mechanisms against terrorism and its demarches of making of the fight against terrorism a key element of its terrorism-prevention agenda. Iohannis also pleaded for setting up an international court against terrorism. The Romanian President also attended high-level meetings organised by Romania together with other countries as well as a series of bilateral meetings with the UN Secretary General, the President of the UN General Assembly and with a number of heads of state. On Thursday, Klaus Iohannis met with ethnic Romanians living in Philadelphia, and asked them to consoldiate the relationship between the Romania and the US. He told the ethnic Romanians that the Strategic Partneship between Romania and the US has gained a new dimension, after the visit he paid to Washington earlier this year. Iohannis said the US President Donald Trump appreciates very much the Romanian community in the US. Also on Thursday, the Romanian President announced that he cancelled his visit to neighbouring Ukraine, scheduled for early October and the meeting with the Chairman of the Supreme Rada, Andriy Parubiy, due in Bucharest, at the end of the month. The Romanian President made these decisions after the Ukrainian Parliament adopted an education law that infringes upon the rights of 400 thousand ethnic Romanians living in Ukraine of having access to education in their native langue.



    Bucharests reactions to the new education law in Ukraine


    On Wednesday, the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, gathered in a plenary session, adopted a declaration on the new education law in Ukraine, which- they say- drastically limits the right to education in the native language of national minorities, including the ethnic Romanians. The Romanian Parliament calls on Kiev to reassess the law, which should only be promulgated by President Petro Poroshenko in order to take effect. The Romanian Parliament also calls on the Ukrainian side to ensure the adequate protection for the linguistic, cultural and religious identity of approximately half a million ethnic Romanians in the neighbouring country. Parliament also voted on the structure of a delegation that will go to Ukraine to support the cause of the Romanian ethnic minority. Romanias delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly will also calls on this body to organise in October a debate that should end with the adoption of a resolution on monitoring Ukraines human rights record.



    Romanian defence minister Mihai Fifor, on a visit to Washington


    The Romanian defence minister, Mihai Fifor, paid a working visit to Washington earlier this week. During the talks he had with the American officials minister Fifor reiterated Bucharests commitment to further be a staunch, predictable and trustworthy partner and to contribute to regional security and stability. He presented the Romanian governments priorities in the field of defence, among which allotting 2% of the GDP for defence. The agenda of talks also covered such issues as strengthening the Romania-US Strategic Partnership and bilateral cooperation in the military field. The Romanian minister has also met with representatives of US defence industry companies. Fifor underlined Bucharests firm commitment to step up the process of modernising the Romanian Armed Forces and has recalled that the Romanian Parliament has already started a series of endowment programs, among which those of purchasing Patriot missiles and Himars systems.



    The simple motion on education has been rejected


    The simple motion requesting the resignation of the education minister, Liviu Pop, was rejected on Monday in a plenary session of the Romanian Senate. Dubbed “Romania without high quality education is a poor country”, the motion had been tabled by the main opposition parties, the National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union. The signatories blame minister Pop for the school year having started without textbooks for fifth graders, the lack of functioning permits in the case of most schools and for the dropout rate, which reached a record high.Liviu Pop said in the plenary session of the Senate that he had compiled a report on the real situation of the Romanian education system.


  • April 22, 2017

    April 22, 2017

    SIREN WARNING DRILL – The outcomes of the alarm drill carried out in Romania this week indicate that the coverage of siren signal is below 50% of the total national territory. According to data provided by the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, hundreds of sirens could not be tested because of breakdowns or of a shortage of siren operators. In the capital city Bucharest, less than a quarter of the sirens were operational during the drill. Under these circumstances, the Inspectorate, jointly with the Communications Ministry, is analysing the option of setting up a complementary citizen information system for disaster situations. Mobile phone texting is one of the options, which will be discussed until mid-May with telecoms operators, said the Communications Minister Augustin Jianu.




    EARTH DAY – On April 22nd, every year, International Earth Day is celebrated. This year the event is held under the motto Environmental and climate literacy, launching a 3-year world education campaign, according to a UN resolution. In Bucharest, Earth Day is marked with an open door day at the National Geology Museum. Special activities for children, concerts and street art events are also organised, and in other cities in Romania people are also invited to take part in events, competitions and exhibitions on environmental topics.




    MILITARY – Romanian troops from Battalion 307 Marines are taking part, until April 30th, in a multinational exercise in Latvia, called “Summer Shield. Alongside the Romanian troops, over 1,000 military from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the US, Canada, UK, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland are taking part. Air defence, exploration and artillery support exercises will be held, as well as weapons of mass destruction defence, anti-tank defence and military engineering exercises. “Summer Shield has been held in Latvia since 2004. Starting 2014, when Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, the exercise became part of NATO manoeuvres. As many as 1,300 troops took part in it in 2016.



    FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION – Thursday nights attack on police forces on Champs-Élysées Boulevard in Paris was the main topic of the last hours of election campaign in France, upsetting the agendas of the candidates and bringing the fight against terrorism back to the forefront of the debate. A poll run after the Champs-Élysées attack finds Emmanuel Macron at the top of voter preferences, with 24.5%, followed by the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, with 23%, and François Fillon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who share the third place, with 19% each. Over 50,000 police and gendarme are working to ensure safety and order during the presidential election period, PM Bernard Cazeneuve has announced.




    TENNIS – Romanias womens tennis team is playing the UK at home, in the playoffs for the Fed Cup World Group II. The games are scheduled for April 22 and 23, in the Black Sea coast resort of Mamaia. Romanias team is made up of Simona Halep (5 WTA), Irina-Camelia Begu (33 WTA), Monica Niculescu (47 WTA) and Sorana Cîrstea (61 WTA). The British team has 2 players in the world top 100: Johanna Konta (10 WTA) and Heather Watson (72 WTA). Romania and Britain have so far played against each other in Fed Cup five times, with Romania winning four of them. Meanwhile, Romanias FED Cup captain, the former world no 1 player Ilie Nastase, has caused a scandal ahead of the play-off tie, through reportedly racist comments about Serena Williams and inappropriate conduct in relation to the British team captain Anne Keothavong. The ITF has begun an investigation.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)