An Egyptian Tsunami Contingency Plan

Abstract

Tsunami is one of the most destructive natural hazards that threatens coastal communities worldwide. Until the famous 2004 tsunami, the phenomenon has rarely been regarded as an essential issue facing coastal communities, following the incident that resulted in over 400 thousand human casualties and left over 750000 homeless people after completely demolishing their homes. The world's consciousness has changed regarding the real threat that tsunami imposes on the existence of coastal communities around the world. The UNESCO's initiated a program, Northeast Atlantic Mediterranean Tsunami Warning System NEAMTWS, to raise all the required mitigation measures to ensure that residents of coastal communities know the kind and degree of threats they are exposed to and how to deal with them. The project identified Egypt's Mediterranean coast as an area of high vulnerability when exposed to tsunami hazards. Although the project was set to achieve its objective by 2011, none of its objectives have been achieved. There is a total ignorance among the local community, authorities, and planners regarding the imposed threat. There is an urgent need for an innovative approach that could mitigate the impact and threats of tsunamis and increase the resilience of coastal communities facing them. The paper aims to innovate a contingency plan for the Egyptian coastal communities as an effective tool for increasing the resilience of coastal communities against tsunamis hazards. A contingency plan is to be proposed based on profound theoretical and analytical analysis of the literature review. Furthermore, based on the findings of an empirical study, the most effective knowledge transfer tool of the proposed plan is to be tested targeting the local community participants. Finally, the paper is to induct an 'Egyptian Tsunami Contingency Plan' (ETCP) that can be applied within the context and limitations of Egyptian coastal communities' conditions.