2023-08-20 17:31:49
Despite the country’s vulnerability in terms of natural phenomenaHaving an atlas and risk protocols is not part of the priorities for most of the country’s municipalities.
In Mexico, 85% of all municipalities lack a risk atlas and, therefore, no plans or strategies for natural phenomena or large-scale accidents, which greatly exposes more than 70 million Mexicans to emergencies, various analyzes highlighted. legislators and experts.
According to various legislative analyses, exhortations and initiatives presented in the forum by the benches in the Upper House, there is a lack of interest from the authorities for 1,970 municipalities that do not have an atlas or risk prevention or mitigation plans, such as floods, landslides, earthquakes , rains, hurricanes, tornadoes and even fires, explosions and other phenomena.
Even in the municipalities that do have this type of instrument, the outlook does not look better, since 501 municipalities that comply with having instruments and protection plans, do not have them updated, have an obsolescence of at least 10 years despite the growth of the population, the urban sprawl and new settlements in areas such as hillsides, riverbeds, ravines or coastal areas.
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Legislative reports state that Cenapred’s National Risk Atlas indicates that 45% of Mexico’s territory is exposed to flooding.
WHAT THE LAW REQUIRES
Article 86 of the General Civil Protection Law states that the different levels of government must be established in the National Risk Atlas and in the respective state and municipal atlases.
Rafael Rodríguez González, with a master’s degree in Geography from UNAM, tells EL UNIVERSAL that unfortunately along with the contempt for having updated risk atlases in the 2,471 municipalities of the country, the profile of Civil Protection officials is added .
He refers that these positions are delivered as a “compensation prize to the nephew, compadre, friend or politician who did not find a place in the cabinet and who, as consolation, drives around the municipality or state in a four-by-four Jeep;
“These are charges that are delivered under the idea that a tragedy will never occur and rarely to true professionals in the field, despite the fact that every year in the country emergencies and tragedies are repeated due to earthquakes, hurricanes, rains, landslides. , fires or accidents in mines. There we have the tragedy in the Sabinas mine, the constant landslides in the rainy season, the tragedy of La Pintada, in Guerrero, where there were no preventive actions, there were no risk maps and the rescue actions were late. aim.
It indicates that many urban settlements are found in riverbeds, slopes, areas that were previously mines, ravines, near the coasts, and despite the latent risks due to earthquakes, hurricanes, rains, or landslides, those in charge of civil protection do not warn of the danger. , they do not have risk atlases and generally, when a tragedy occurs, nature is blamed, but not the corruption and negligence of politicians and officials.
Legislative reports state that the National Risk Atlas of the National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) indicates that 45% of the territory of Mexico is exposed to flooding, so every year the Civil Protection agencies and the federal entities that Due to their geographical location, they are more prone to depressions and tropical storms, as well as hurricanes. They must work in a coordinated manner to prevent deaths and that the population can move away and evacuate in time from risk areas.
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Marco Antonio Natale, federal deputy of the PVEM, in a point of agreement, underlines that the risk atlases at the municipal level facilitate construction and repair work, real estate purchase, demand for public services and even the individual decision to live or not in some area, as they must also be public and easily accessible to the population of each municipality and city.
“The inventory of risk atlases in Mexico reveals that only 375 of the 2,471 municipalities in the country have a document of this type. Given these figures, the importance of developing and updating most of the risk atlases in the country arises, with the supervision of the government institution specialized in these issues”.
It should be noted that despite the fact that the Basic Guide for the Preparation of State and Municipal Hazard and Risk Atlases of Cenapred indicates that risk atlases must be updated every two years, there are several that were prepared more than 10 years ago and still They have not updated.
In December of last year, the Mexican Association of Urban Planners denounced in EL UNIVERSAL the fulfillment at the end of 2022 of two years since the Board of Directors of the Senate turned over to the joint commissions of the Interior and Legislative Studies the draft with the decree project for the that the General Law of Integral Management of Disaster Risk and Civil Protection is issued, for its analysis and ruling.
(With information from El Universal)
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