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TopIntroduction
Mexico, due to its geographical location and its large territorial area, is exposed to natural phenomena such as earthquakes, floods, tropical cyclones, heavy rains, volcanic eruptions, frosts, slopes, droughts, etc. On the other hand, due to the socio-economic characteristics of the country, other destructive phenomena such as chemical-technological, sanitary, ecological nature may occur. From 2000 to 2018 the disasters have caused 190 deaths and 2537 millions of dollars of losses in Mexico annually (CNPC & CENAPRED, 2018).
The tsunami on December 24 in 2004 in Indonesia caused the loss of thousands of lives. In the following days, the UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan called for the development of a global early warning system for all natural hazards and all communities (UNISDR, 2006). An Emergency Alert System (EAS), Early Warning Systems (EWS), or Public Warning System (PWS) are a set of elements that provide timely and effective information, through identified institutions, that allow individuals exposed to a hazard, to take action to avoid or reduce their risk, and to be prepared for effective response (UNISDR, 2006)(DOF, 2015). The United Nations States that “Country-based early warning systems are needed for the protection of citizens” (UNISDR, 2006). There is no doubt that effective early warning systems have substantially reduced deaths and injuries from severe weather events (Rogers & Tsirkunov, 2010)(Vivier et al., 2019).
In this paper, the status of the Emergency Alert Systems in Mexico is analyzed, with the intention to propose an Integral EAS covering all the threats and all the country. Latin America region share together with México many characteristics regarding disaster risks, as well as economic and political situations, hence the work, the methodology and the proposal made on this paper can be helpful for other countries in the region.
The main objectives of this paper are to analyze the EAS in Mexico to improve the answer in catastrophic events and propose an Integral Emergency Alert System for the country.
First of all, the main characteristics of the EAS in general are studied. Then, the existing EAS in Mexico are summarized. As the broadcasting and cellular networks are mostly used for transmitting EAS messages, the coverage of these systems is presented. The results lead to propose an Integral Emergency Alert System for Mexico. The main desired characteristics of the system are:
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Coverage all over the country, or at least to cover as much as possible.
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To cover all the threats monitored in Mexico.
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The information must be as simple as possible to be easily understood by the population.
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Re-use as much as possible the existing infrastructure.
TopBackground
Eas Definition
Emergency Alert Systems (EAS), is the integration of four main elements (UNISDR, 2006)(Grasso et al., 2012):
This paper is focused on the third element, the information dissemination. The two first elements are responsibility of the organizations that generate the alert, while the last one is mainly responsibility of civil protection organizations.
In an EAS, the redundancy of communication systems is essential, while emergency power supplies and back-up systems are critical in order to avoid the collapse of communication systems after disasters occur. In addition, to ensure the reliably and effectively operation of the communication systems during and after a disaster; and to avoid network congestion, frequencies and channels must be reserved and dedicated to disaster relief operations (Grasso et al., 2012).