DGRTD

Near Fethiye on the coast of southern Turkey seismic activity has been underway for thousands of years. Two years after the tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in South East Asia, European scientists are warning that a similar scenario could happen nearer to home. This region in the eastern Mediterranean is considered the most vulnerable. Turkish geophysicist Ahmet Yalciner from the University of Ankara considers the risks to be "very serious". He is the local coordinator of the TRANSFER project, aimed at better understanding tsunami processes in the Euro-Mediterranean region. This way we will be better able to predict future tsunamis in Europe. To do this thirty teams from all over Europe are using 3D graphics and working closely together. Professor Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist from the University of Bologna, analyses all the data from the different control stations around Europe. He and his team hope that their work will lead to the construction of an Early Warning System. To achieve this, international cooperation is vital. Like the participation of the scientists at the Kandilli observatory. Mustafa Erdik and his team gather earthquake data as part of another European project, SAFER. The SAFER project seeks to capitalise on new developments (in seismology); especially for the early warning and rapid response systems. Despite ongoing collaborations predicitng earthquakes remains very difficult so the more people join in the more chance we have of preventing catastrofes.

dgr (european union),