24 Apr The final conference of the bilateral initiative Light USAR Certification for Earthquake Resilience
On April 11, the results of the bilateral initiative “Light USAR Certification for Earthquake Resilience” were presented in Zagreb. The initiative is financed through the Fund for Bilateral Relations of the EEA and Norway Grants for the period 2014-2021 and implemented by the CMRS in partnership with the Norwegian organization Norske Redningshunder (Norwegian Search and Rescue Dogs).
The initiative “Light USAR Certification for Earthquake Resilience” is a continuation of the successfully completed initiative “Sharing of experiences between Croatia and Norway in search and rescue in ruins”, which was also carried out in cooperation with the Norwegian organization Norske Redningshunder (Norwegian Search and Rescue Dogs). The initiative is aimed at strengthening the capacity of K9 teams for search and rescue from ruins, and its total value is EUR 200,000.00.
At the beginning of the conference, the attendees were addressed by Marko Rakovac – Executive Director of the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service and the Ambassador of Norway to Croatia, Mr. Arne Sannes Bjørnstad. This was followed by a presentation of the project results as well as a presentation of operational work through four training sessions held in Norway and Croatia.
At the end of the conference, an extremely constructive panel discussion was held, in which Tomislav Marević from the Civil Protection Directorate, Emanuel Krstulović from the Croatian Firefighting Association, Dalibor Belagić from the City Office for Local Self-Government, Traffic, Civil Protection and Security of the City of Zagreb and Matej Radanović from the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service participated. The discussions focused on challenges, practices and future steps in developing local capacities for earthquake response.