“We have 17 municipalities that have achieved the set goals. Of course, there are municipalities that may not look so good, but, of course, the most relevant question for you is how big cities look like. It is 49% in the city of Vilnius, 54% in the city of Šiauliai, 34% in the city of Kaunas, and 18% in the city of Klaipėda. and the worst situation is in the municipality of Panevėžys, where there are only 6% of shelters”, – said A. Bilotaitė in the debate “Shelters in Lithuania – will we have to wait another 100 years for changes?” in the Seimas on Monday.
According to her, such numbers are not so much due to the lack of facilities in the municipalities.
“A lot depends on the attitude of the municipality, because, yes, it is the responsibility of the municipality to assess the existing objects in its territory. Of course, there are situations when sometimes there are no suitable objects, buildings, but very often there are those objects. It is very important that there is an interest and a desire to move that process, to push it in order to have a result”, said the Minister of the Interior.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaly Dmitriev showed the participants of the discussion a map where the municipalities are colored according to the number of shelters.
“The map that the minister mentioned looks like this, I wouldn’t want to share it, apparently, very publicly, because basically it shows certain weak places. But in the last week there have been 80 objects plus <...>. Very carefully, because that process is changing”, noted V. Dmitrijevs and said that the goal is to focus not only on municipalities colored in red on the map, but also on safe territories, where both shelters and collective protection structures will be needed.
“It is related to the possibilities of evacuating people, evacuating from unsafe areas, for example, borders, borders, to a safer area, that is, for example, to the middle of the state.
Actually, Vilnius does not look bad with its 49%, as the requirement for big cities is 60%. of the population,” said the vice-minister.
Among other things, he mentioned that the shelters in Lithuania are planned to be divided.
“What do we want to do, to adopt the experience of other foreign countries, to sort all the covers we have identified into three categories. This is the category that meets the highest requirements, then – a building of public purpose and the third category – based on residential houses”, said V. Dmitrijev.
The Minister of the Interior stated that about 1 million, that is 36 percent, of the population could hide in the currently marked shelters. According to her, the goal is that 60 percent of the people in big cities can hide from the danger of the weather. population, and 40 percent in the districts.
She admitted that there is a lack of shelters, but at the same time noted that their development is underway: it is planned to add more than 200 objects to the network of shelters, basements of renovated buildings can be adapted, shelters can be installed in newly constructed buildings (this is already regulated by law), shelters can be installed and the residents themselves in their own homes.
“Every resident who owns a residential building can find recommendations on how to install a shelter in their basement on the Lt72.lt page. According to the data of our survey, 28 percent residents have such shelters installed in their basements. We think that we could further advance that process with an active communication campaign”, said A. Bilotaitė.
During the discussion, she also discussed other topics and problems related to civil safety, such as the evacuation of residents. Currently, according to the minister, a national evacuation plan is being prepared.
“When it comes to the concept of civil security, the first thing <...> the most important element is air defense, respectively even all the military, defensive elements that should work. If that doesn’t work, the second element that comes into play is the evacuation of the population, to safe places, relocation to where it is safer, and the third element, when it is not possible to move people to safe places, is the shelter of people’s safe location. People must know where those shelters are and stay there safely for a short period of time”, said A. Bilotaitė.
