Civil Protection Department

Seismic risk: DRHOUSE project

The project is funded by the European Commission as one of the "Preparatory Action on an EU rapid response capability" and provides for the preparation and the eventual deployment of up to 15,000 kilometers away of a macromodule of European civil protection for damage and safety evaluation in foreign countries of buildings damaged by an earthquake, and the subsequent securing of the same. The Civil Protection Department is coordinating beneficiary of the project.

The macromodule intervention consists of three different modules that can operate together or separately:
1) BSA module - Basic Safety Assessment for the visual assessment of viability and damage
2) ASA module - Advanced Safety Assessment for advanced numerical and experimental
evaluating
3) STC module - Short Term Countermeasures for safety interventions.

Since 2010, the DRHOUSE project has involved and trained for operational contexts abroad more than 300 technicians as part of the National System of civil protection, allowing to develop visual assessment team for post-seismic damage detection, advanced evaluation teams made by experts from the Eucentre Foundation to verify the usability of strategic structures with numerical experimental tests, and teams of the National Fire Deparment specialized in safety interventions through the implementation of urgent technical countermeasures.

The new Italian Build-Safe module has been tested in October 2012 during an international exercise organized in Patras, in collaboration with the Greek civil protection system.
The project ended with a demonstrative workshop in Alessandria from 16 to 18 of April. During the workshop the potential of the new module Build-Safe was displayed through practical demonstrations of operations of the various teams. Representatives of civil protection systems from various countries were invited to participate as observers, to share the path undertaken from 2010 in in collaboration with different entities of the National System of Civil Protection.

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