WE HAVE NOT ADVANCED ON PREVENTION BUT IN MITIGATION.

For many years I warned, the country, from the risk of occurrence of an earthquake of Grade 8 or close to 8, Before, it was very difficult to imagine a catastrophe which is living Ecuador,

I had difficulty explaining the size of the earthquake was coming, and probably much they heard me had difficulty believing he could really happen.

I have given thousands of interviews since 2000, each explaining in detail each journalist, regardless of their rating,  the latent risk in our territory, with the aim of creating awareness on them and that they replicate these explanations in their media.

The success of my campaign was biased because the media managed to peal this information and social awareness was generated and the government created the Ministry of prevention.

But the issue of earthquakes was relegated to a distant, illusory and a urban legend theory.

Coby Steven says that we should not become firemens, to resolve situations when they arise, but taking about the word "prevention", we should anticipate situations, years before, they happen. Identify threats and work on the fortifications of our weaknesses against this event in advance.

The word "Prevention" comes from the word "Prevent" which comes from the combination of two Latin words are: "Pre" and "Venire", then "Prevent" means that we must be prepared before the event comes.

The work on disaster mitigation, after the event, is not prevention: In Ecuador, have made no progress in prevention, we have advanced in mitigation of the phenomenon "El niño"). Pedernales earthquake was a cruel demonstration that we miss much to do. All of us, I hope, we learnt.

M.Sc. (TUM), PStG, Ing. Marcelo Moncayo Theurer
Earthquake resistant structures expert
Specialist Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Prevention
Specialist modeling of natural disasters in computer