Assessed by international standards the whole territory of Armenia including Yerevan city is situated in seismically active zone. Therefore it is essential to ensure the seismic protection of population. The statistics of the world’s strongest earthquakes and the losses caused by them prompt that public awareness requires the special attention. The main measure to raise the public awareness is to educate. It includes all levels of population from elder generation to younger and from ordinary people to the representatives of the Government. The educated population is an active section of society that is able through effective actions to reduce the possible losses caused by strong earthquakes. The seismic protection is not only the actions before, during and after the earthquake, but also it is mainly creation of necessary conditions that mitigate human and property losses.
The worldwide experience and especially the Spitak earthquake showed that the number of victims and injured people would significantly decrease if people were prepared beforehand. People should know what would happen with them in case of strong earthquake.
Knowledge about the situation after disaster will assist not only to panic prevention, but also it will help to carry out some activities to reduce disaster consequences. Public active participation would encourage the organization of first medical aid. Population has a great deal in the activities on recovery of disaster zone as well. Thus public education and raising the awareness are the important components of disaster preparedness.
The main forms of public education are as follows:
Education in public schools, which is considered to be the most essential one. Man obtains knowledge about earthquake from his childhood. Special attention is given to the studies of the activities that can be applied in case of seismic risk or hazard. For elder population special courses in the form of seminars are held.
Social information is very important for public awareness implemented through the media coverage. It is an important issue to educate persons who will directly participate in implementation of earthquake preparedness plan. The education of responsible people for early warning system is as important as the education of rescuers and physicians. Thanks to preparedness high results can be achieved only when all executors of the plan are aware and prepared. Everybody should have serious concern to the raising of public’s seismic culture.