Lithuanian institutions ‘extremely unprepared for extreme situations’

In the event of a threat, state institutions would not be prepared to protect the population from the danger – over a third of the state institutions have not organized any training in over three years.

Moreover, a quarter of them do not perform civil protection training, employees do not get even a minimal knowledge of what to do and how to behave in case of an emergency, some institutions do not even have emergency management plans, although it had to be done five years ago, according to the National Audit Office‘s findings.

The parliamentary National Security and Defence Committee Chairman Artūras Paulauskas says that he often has the impression that many think Lithuania lives in an oasis, shielded from threats, incidents and disasters, so most institutions ignore the calls to draw emergency plans, to do training to prepare for emergencies.

“Evacuation procedures have been updated last year, revised, clearly organized what decisions and when to make on how to organize evacuation of the population in the country,” said Interior Minister Tomas Žilinskas.

The state emergency operations centre should be opened at the end of the year. It will be tasked with analysing data from other operations centres and coordinating their efforts.

LRT