Almaty citizens need “disaster preparedness kits"

Almaty is an earthquake-prone zone. But since notable earthquakes don’t happen often the majority of Almaty citizens are unprepared to actually face one. However the current Japanese events have made Kazakh citizens take the earthquake possibility more seriously. Every resident of Almaty has to be self-prepared on how to behave in case of an earthquake, Yuriy Ilyin, deputy head of Almaty Emergency Situations Department, said. Every Almaty citizen should have a so called “disaster preparedness kit” with a food stock for three days. Besides, they have to carefully consider ways of securing themselves and their family and plan their actions in case of an earthquake in advance. “Self-preparedness is a priority task right now. One shouldn’t rely exclusively on emergency situations teams, especially in the first hours and days after an earthquake,” Ilyin said. Ilyin called Almaty citizens to be alert even though seismologists forecast no destructive earthquakes in the nearest time. “It is important to remember that we live in a quake-prone area, anything can happen,” he said. Earlier Viktor Inyushin, biophysics department chairman of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University said that earthquakes were highly probable in Almaty between March 18 and 20. But he said that the possible shocks would pose no threat to people’s lives. 9.8-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on March 11. It caused a devastating 10-meter tsunami wave. 3373 people are confirmed dead, many are still unaccounted for.