Bucharest City Hall will support the construction of 13 new fire fighting subunits in the capital, according to a statement from the municipality. It will allocate some EUR 4 million for this project.

Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea met state secretary Raed Arafat, the management of the Bucharest General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) and the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (ISU), and the mayors of the capital’s six districts, to find ways of optimizing the response time in case of emergencies such as fires or earthquakes.

The first point on the meeting’s agenda was the need to set up new fire subunits in the capital, for a more rapid intervention. According to Raed Arafat, no fire subunit has been built in Bucharest since 1989, and this significantly affects the response time for emergencies.

Arafat recently said that the emergency infrastructure in Bucharest may be impaired in case of an earthquake.

Bucharest currently has only 19 fire fighting subunits: four in District 1, three in District 2, four in District 3, only one in District 4, four in District 5, and three in District 6. The authorities now plan to build 13 new fire subunits so that the total number would increase to 32.

The District mayors are to identify the land areas where these units could be built in maximum ten days. The mayor said that the money needed for the construction of the new subunits, namely some EUR 4 million, would be included in the City Hall's next budget amendment.

Bucharest City Hall has also announced it would prepare the hospitals it manages to withstand the effects of an earthquake.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com