Nicosia, Cyprus. Cyprus will remove nearly 200 civil defence evacuation shelters from its official list after inspections found they were unsuitable for use or no longer existed, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Wednesday.
Inspections and declassified shelters
Ioannou said inspections were carried out at 2,480 sites listed as shelters and found that 194 either “are not suitable” or “the buildings no longer exist”. He said these sites were “declassified as shelters”.
Access changes and SafeCY updates
He said a further 288 shelters are now not accessible to the public and are exclusively for the use of the owners or tenants of the buildings in which they are located.
“For unsuitable and privately used shelters, the process of removing them from the SafeCY application has begun, and will be completed within the next few days,” he said.
Readiness of remaining shelters
Ioannou said inspections also found that “a number of shelters need to have items moved or to be cleaned so that they are ready to accommodate people”. He said the ministry is “in communication” with building owners “so as to assist in the movement of items and the cleaning of the premises”.
Shift toward larger public spaces
He said the policy implemented from 1999 to 2013 for creating shelters in existing private spaces “presents significant weaknesses”, adding that after 2013, successive governments prioritised public spaces such as municipal underground car parks, hotels, and office spaces.
He said the actual number of shelters is expected to decrease over time, but that finding larger spaces would mean a larger percentage of the population will be covered.
New locations identified
Ioannou said meetings have been held with district governments, municipalities, and village councils and that “public spaces have been identified” as suitable for the temporary accommodation of a large number of people.
He said these spaces are gradually being added to the SafeCY application and that in the next two or three days the removal of shelters not to be used is expected to be completed, along with corrections to precise locations where problems were observed, while new spaces are added.
How will the removal and addition of shelters in the SafeCY application affect you?
