Ecobreves – HONDURAS: School Kids Learn How to React to Floods and Landslides

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

TEGUCIGALPA, Mar 19 2012 (IPS) - More than 600 students from two schools located in areas at high risk for flooding and landslides in the Honduran capital are receiving training on what to do when these disasters occur. Most educational centers in Tegucigalpa are structurally inadequate and “would succumb to the first tremor or a landslide, so to prevent tragedies we are training the students through drills that simulate these emergency scenarios,” city councilor Julio Salgado told Tierramérica.

The training in risk prevention techniques, provided by specialists from the United Nations and the city government’s Emergency Response Committee, began in the schools in the neighborhoods of El Reparto and Ulloa, on the north side of Tegucigalpa.

The ultimate goal is to teach these techniques to children in the 19 Tegucigalpa schools located in areas vulnerable to flooding and landslides before the next rainy season begins.