At the end of the fire season, when the damage caused by the fire, albeit unofficially, is measured in millions, the director of the Directorate for Emergency Situations, Mirsad Mulić, is satisfied with the way his department reacted. It bothers him, he says, that everyone's focus is on the destroyed, instead of the preserved.
"The fact that we have no injured firefighters, citizens, that we have preserved all residential and business buildings, the complete infrastructure, is a capital that we can happily point out in all of this. Unfortunately, it is underestimated. What we saved is underestimated, and what we saved is favored was burned," says Mućić to TV Vijesti.
In anticipation of the rainy season, the Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs presented new flood protection equipment that was acquired as part of the Program for Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Floods in the Western Balkans. We got everything we didn't have until now. Among other things, the so-called "submersible pumps", which draw water from the basements of households.
"These are two high-capacity pumps, which draw 5 liters of water per minute, and at the same time we received five pumps with a slightly smaller capacity of 800 to 14 liters. There are also 400 tents, and we also received XNUMX meters of dams for flood protection." adds Mulić.
With the new equipment, worth 215 thousand euros, Montenegro is better prepared for possible floods, Mulić emphasizes. In addition to the Directorate for Emergency Situations, it will also be available to the protection and rescue services in the municipalities that were previously most at risk - Ulcinj, Bar, Cetinje and Podgorica. The next step is to form flood protection teams.
"When you look at the equipment we received, you will understand that the state of Montenegro is much more ready to act when it comes to floods," says Andrija Čađenović, head of the Podgorica Protection and Rescue Service.
However, if there is a flood or some other emergency situation, Montenegro will still not have a single member of the civil defense on the ground. The law foresees 2000 of them, and Mulić admits that the problem is money.
"We will probably start already at the end of this year, we need to form civil protection units with a public call. I say again, it all depends on finances and we will see how many there will be from the budget this year."
We heard similar answers in previous years.
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