World Tsunami Awareness Day 2022 Community Tsunami Exercise in Büyükçekmece-Istanbul (Türkiye) : observer report.
Date: 2023-01-12
Institutions: Joint Research Centre
Subjects: Türkiye, coastal region, environmental research, environmental risk prevention, natural disaster, natural hazard, simulation

World Tsunami Awareness Day 2022 
Community Tsunami Exercise in 
Büyükçekmece-Istanbul (Türkiye) 

Observer Report 

Necmioglu, O. 

2023 

ISSN 1831-9424 

EUR 31357 EN 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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JRC131648 

EUR 31357 EN 

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ISSN 1831-9424 

doi:10.2760/728422 

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How to cite this report: Necmioglu, O., World Tsunami Awareness Day 2022 Community Tsunami Exercise in Büyükçekmece-Istanbul (Türkiye), 
Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, doi:10.2760/728442 JRC131648.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
      
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Contents  

Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................. 1 

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................ 2 

1 

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 3 

2  Exercise ............................................................................................................................................................. 7 

2.1  Before the Exercise .................................................................................................................................. 7 

2.2  During the Exercise ................................................................................................................................... 8 

2.3  After the Exercise ................................................................................................................................... 10 

3  Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 

References ............................................................................................................................................................ 12 

List of abbreviations and definitions .................................................................................................................... 13 

List of figures ........................................................................................................................................................ 14 

i 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Abstract  

The  first  community  tsunami  evacuation  exercise  of  Türkiye  has  been  organised  on  4  November  2022  in 
Büyükçekmece District of Istanbul within the frame of at the CoastWAVE (1) Project funded by the DG-ECHO (2). 
The Exercise was based on an earthquake scenario prepared by KOERI  (3), GTU  (4), and METU  (5), which would 
trigger a tsunami that would mainly impact Istanbul but also lead to tsunami impact in other cities in the vicinity 
of  the  Marmara  Sea.  The  evacuation  part  of  the  exercise  is  prepared  in  the  coordination  of  KOERI  with  the 
collaboration of IMM  (6) and AFAD  (7) with the contribution of other civilian authorities, the provincial security 
directorate, provincial gendarmerie command, district governorship/prefecture etc. JRC (8) has been invited to 
act  as  an  Observer  of  the  Exercise.  This  report  has  been  prepared  to  address  this  function  and  provides  a 
summary of observations and recommendations for future exercises. 

(1) 

Strengthening the Resilience of Coastal Communities in the Northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean Region to the Impact of Tsunamis and 
Other Sea Level-Related Coastal Hazards Project 

Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute 

(2)  Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations 
(3) 
(4)  Gebze Technical University 
(5)  Middle East Technical University 
(6) 
(7)  Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Republic of Türkiye 
(8) 

European Commission – Joint Research Centre 

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality  

1 

 
 
 
 
Acknowledgements  

The author of this report would like to acknowledge Evrim Yavuz (IMM) and Didem Samut Cambaz (KOERI) for 
sharing images taken during the conduct of the exercise. 

2 

1 

Introduction  

Tsunami preparedness plays an important role not only in minimizing the risk to lives and livelihoods, but also in 
mitigating the effects of future tsunamis. In that respect, tsunami exercises play an important role to validate 
and advance tsunami resilient communities and to ensure that an effective tsunami warning chain is in place in 
regions prone to tsunami hazard. They are not only a tool for increasing community awareness, readiness, and 
preparedness,  but  also  provide  opportunities  for  countries  and  communities  to  educate  and  practice  the 
corresponding  actions  and  procedures  to  get  ready  for  a  real  tsunami  event  (Soto  et  al.,  2022).  In  the  Euro-
Mediterranean  region,  regular  tsunami  exercises  are  being  organized  under  the  framework  of  UNESCO/IOC 
ICG/NEAMTWS, which were mainly focusing on the effectiveness of the regional and national tsunami warning 
system, without focusing too much on the « Last Mile » element of the tsunami warning, namely ensuring that 
people in tsunami risk areas are able to receive tsunami warning messages as soon as possible through various 
mechanisms and communication channels towards effective evacuation. 

To address this gap, “in agreement and with the support of European Commission DG ECHO, JRC designed a novel 
programme  aimed  at  solving  the  ‘Last  Mile’  issue,  i.e.,  the  timely  provision  of  alert  information  to  the  local 
population, in the worst case of near to shore tsunami events. The Last Mile Project aimed at testing a prototype 
local system for tsunami early warning, which relies on a suite of technological solutions installed locally, able to 
detect tsunami events and timely alert the community in question. This system foresees the integration with the 
national tsunami warning system, which can push the national tsunami alert messages into the local alerting 
system,  to  confirm  or  integrate  what  has  been  detected  locally  or  to  warn  the  population  through  the  civil 
protection agencies/organisation in case of tsunami events generated far from the considered location, thus not 
detected locally. The project foresees as well fundamental tsunami risk mitigation activities like the tsunami risk 
assessment, the tsunami emergency management plan and the tsunami risk awareness raising in the chosen local 
communities to ensure effective use of the tsunami warning to be disseminated.   The first Tsunami Last Mile 
Project was implemented in 2018-2019 in the two municipalities that have been mostly affected during the Mw 
6.6 earthquake event of 20th of July 2017: Kos in Greece and Bodrum in Turkey. A functional exercise with the 
involvement  of  local  stakeholders  were  organized  in  Kos,  whereas  in  Bodrum  only  a  table-top  exercise  was 
executed. The second implementation of the Tsunami Last Mile Project took place in 2020-2021 and the chosen 
local community in Malta was Marsaxlokk, where an exercise was organized in Malta in 2021 to measure the 
effectiveness of the Tsunami « Last Mile » project’s outcomes and their potential transferability to other areas of 
the Mediterranean region” (MALTA21 Exercise Evaluation Report, 2021). 

Figure 1. Geographic location of the Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool in the Marmara Region. 

3 

 
Figure 2. Generic view of the coastal area close to the İstanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool. 

The author of this report has been invited on 26.10.2022 to act as an Observer during the Community Tsunami 
Exercise in Büyükçekmece District of Istanbul – Türkiye to be organized on 4 November 2022 both in the frame 
of at the CoastWAVE Project funded by the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian 
Aid  Operations  (DG-ECHO),  November  5  World  Tsunami  Awareness  Day  and  10th  Anniversary  of  Kandilli 
Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute - Regional Earthquake and Tsunami Monitoring Center (KOERI-
RETMC),  which  is  the  National  Tsunami  Warning  Centre  (NTWC)  for  Türkiye  and  an  Intergovernmental 
Coordination  Group  for  the  Tsunami  Early  Warning  and  Mitigation  System  in  the  North-eastern  Atlantic,  the 
Mediterranean and connected seas (ICG/NEAMTWS) accredited Tsunami Service Provider (TSP) of UNESCO-IOC. 
The Exercise was based on an earthquake scenario prepared by KOERI, Gebze Technical University (GTU), and 
Middle East Technical University (METU) which would trigger a tsunami that would mainly impact Istanbul but 
also lead to tsunami impact in other cities in the vicinity of the Marmara Sea. According to the scenario, KOERI 
would  disseminate  7  regional-type  messages  during  the  exercise.  The  evacuation  part  of  the  exercise  was 
prepared in the coordination of KOERI with the collaboration of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) and 
Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Republic of Türkiye (AFAD) with the contribution of other 
the  provincial  security  directorate,  provincial  gendarmerie  command,  district 
civilian  authorities, 
governorship/prefecture etc. The exercise aims to evaluate the achievements in tsunami risk reduction, simulate 
the  communication  chain  and  improve  the  operational  procedures,  and  gain  community  experience  in  the 
CoastWAVE  pilot  district  Büyükçekmece,  where  the  Istanbul  Büyükçekmece  Anatolian  Highschool  has  been 
identified as a direct participant of this exercise. 

On  2  November,  KOERI  shared  a  report  that  summarizes  the  scientific  background  of  the  exercise  scenario 
together with a Master Schedule of Events List (MSEL) which indicates only which messages will be disseminated 
by KOERI and at what time. Copies of the messages to be disseminated during the exercise were also included in 
this  report.  During  the  corresponding  communication,  KOERI  had  also  informed  that  the  rest  of  the  details 
regarding the road maps, the tsunami exercise evaluation, and the following IOC-UNESCO Meeting with Istanbul 
Metropolitan Municipality, will be shared by IMM. Unfortunately, no such information was provided by the IMM 
prior to the exercise and the evacuation route to the “tsunami safe area was available to the author of this report 
only after the Exercise (Figure 4). 

4 

 
 
Figure 3. Location of the Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool. 

Figure 4. The evacuation route to the “tsunami safe area”. 

5 

 
 
Figure 5. Tsunami Information Board (left) and Tsunami Evacuation Route signage (right) located in the proximity of the 
Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool along the coastline. 

The observations of the author of this report for all phases of the Exercise can be found in the next section. All 
reported times are local (CET +2h). 

6 

 
 
2  Exercise 

2.1  Before the Exercise 

09:30  Representatives of KOERI, METU, GTU, IMM, AFAD-Istanbul, Istanbul Governorship, Istanbul National 
Education Directorate, Istanbul Provincial Gendarmerie, Istanbul Provincial Police Department and EC-
JRC met in front of the Tsunami Information Board located approximately 200m away from the İstanbul 
Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool. 

09:50 

The group has been invited to walk towards the Highschool where the exercise will start. 

Figure 6. Representatives of the exercise stakeholders in front of the Highschool 10min before the exercise. 

Figure 7. AFAD Istanbul Response Team across the Highschool 10min before the exercise. 

Figure 8. Media interviews just before the start of the exercise. 

7 

 
 
 
2.2  During the Exercise 

10:00 

The  exercise  should  have  started  at  this  time  as  it  corresponds  to  the  scenario  EQ  origin  time. 
Participants  have  been  informed  that  there  was  a  last-minute  change  request  by  AFAD  Istanbul  to 
involve  all  students  at  the  school  in  the  EQ  drill  part  of  the  exercise,  in  contrary  to  what  has  been 
discussed  and  agreed  where  only  one  selected  class  of  students  we  supposed  to  participate  in  the 
exercise. 

10:05   The exercise has started with a siren to simulate the occurrence of the scenario EQ.  

10:06   Students of the Highschool started to gather in the school yard. 

Figure 9. High school students are leaving the school building after the “scenario earthquake”. 

10:07   KOERI has disseminated its 1st exercise message in accordance with the “Exercise Report” via SMS and 

e-mail. This action did not consider the actual 5 min delay of the start of the exercise. 

10:10   All students were gathered in the school yard. 

Figure 10. Students gathered in the high school yard. 

10:11 

The representative of the National Education Directorate informed the Highschool director that she has 
not received any messages. It appeared that there were some communication problems between AFAD 
Istanbul – TSP and AFAD Istanbul – Local Exercise Stakeholders. The representative also informed that 
she has received the instructions to start the evacuation of the students. 

10:12  A teacher instructed verbally the selected class to start the tsunami evacuation. The time of the action 
corresponds to the time where the TSP message has been communicated to the AFAD, which is not 
realistic in the absence of the direct communication between the TSP and the “Last Mile”. 

8 

 
 
 
 
 
Figure 11. Scenes from the evacuation route. 

10:19 

Students finished the evacuation by reaching the identified safe area. 

The  exercise  was  announced  as  “finished”.  Students  and  exercise  participants  returned  to  the  high 

10:30 
school. 

9 

 
 
Figure 11. Scenes Students in the “tsunami safe area” as identified by the corresponding tsunami signage. 

2.3  After the Exercise 

A hot debriefing was organized in the meeting room of the “Ömer Gültekin Yavuz Selim Primary School”. The 
following issues have been covered: 

- 

- 

-  

- 

-  

- 

There was no Exercise Manual that could have been used by all stakeholders involved in the Exercise. 
During the hot debriefing, it become evident that details of the actual evacuation exercise had been 
shared among some stakeholders. This was indeed useful for those who had this document in hand, but 
nevertheless, it would have not served the purposes of an Exercise Manual. 

 There was no clear control-monitoring mechanism for the conduct of the exercise. 

No megaphone was used during the exercise. A WhatsApp group was created to enable communication 
between the stakeholders during the exercise, but in practice, the efficiency of such a WhatsApp group 
should be very questionable during an evacuation exercise where people are actively on the move. 

There  were  no  special  ID  cards  or  any  other  identifier  (such  as  reflective  vests  with  different 
colours/symbols) that could allow all involved to easily identify the role of any individual during the 
exercise.  

The  emergency  communication  mechanism  between  the  TSP  and  the  “Last  Mile”  (in  this  case  the 
Director of the High School who has the authority to initiate the evacuation) was not clear. During the 
exercise, the communication flow was channelled as KOERI - AFAD Headquarters (in Ankara) - AFAD 
Istanbul – High School Director for the purposes of the exercise, which may not reflect the actual flow 
of information. 

 In reality, the High School Director has the instructions to keep the students in the school yard in the 
case of a real earthquake until the parents come to the school and pick them up. This regulation clearly 
ignores any potential tsunami and indicates the necessity of corresponding legislative changes. 

Figure 11. Hot-debriefing and initial evaluation meeting after the exercise. 

10 

 
 
 
 
3  Conclusions 

This community tsunami evacuation exercise was the first of its kind in Türkiye and was an important milestone 
towards Istanbul’s possible Tsunami Ready recognition. It provided a forum which allowed all stakeholders to 
identify the gaps in the tsunami warning chain and what their roles and responsibilities are. The hot debriefing 
after the exercise was lively and productive.  

The lack of a complete Exercise Manual and changes introduced in the last minute could be identified as the 
major  drawbacks  of  the  exercise.  Moreover,  it  was  not  clear  how  the  sea-level  measurements  through  the 
TSP/NTWC ongoing messages were incorporated in the exercise. Most importantly, the exercise did not consider 
the limitations of the centralized tsunami warning system which necessitates at least 7 min for the issuance of 
the tsunami warning. Considering that the tsunami warning issued by the NTWC will have to go through AFAD 
prior to making it available publicly, in reality at least a time-gap of at least 10 min should be expected to have 
the tsunami warning reached the last mile.  

A future tsunami evacuation exercise should be based on a more realistic scenario, namely the requirement to 
act as soon as possible after a major earthquake, which necessitates on-site monitoring/detection and warning 
dissemination methodologies. In addition, a future tsunami evacuation exercise should also consider persons 
with disabilities, elderly people, tourists, damage-injuries-road blockage due to the earthquake impact and traffic 
chaos due to people who would like to escape the area by their vehicles. An exercise manual should be prepared 
and  distributed  to  all  involved  stakeholders  preferably  3  months–  latest  one  month  in  advance.  But  most 
importantly,  any  future  community  tsunami  exercise  should  have  better  coordination  among  all  involved 
stakeholders in all phases of the exercise (planning, preparation, conduct, evaluation) and there should be a well-
defined coordination mechanism during the conduct of the exercise. 

11 

References  

Soto, S., von Hillebrandt-Andrade, C., Vanacore, E.A., Chacón-Barrantes, S., Brome, A.; CARIBE WAVE: A Decade 
of  Exercises  for  Validating  Tsunami  Preparedness  in  the  Caribbean  and  Adjacent  Regions.  Bulletin  of  the 
Seismological Society of America 2022; doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120220095 

ICG/NEAMTWS Tsunami Exercises  

Last Mile – Bodrum (JRC/IPR/2018/E.1/0013/NC) Final Report of the Activity 

Last Mile – Kos (JRC936248-IPR-2018/29.11.2018) Final Report of the Activity 

MALTA21-Tsunami Last Mile Exercise Marsaxlokk (Malta), 5 November 2021 Evaluation Report  

12 

 
List of abbreviations and definitions 

AFAD 

Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Republic of Türkiye 

CoastWAVE 

Strengthening the Resilience of Coastal Communities in the Northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean 
Region to the Impact of Tsunamis and Other Sea Level-Related Coastal Hazards Project 

DG-ECHO 

Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations 

GTU 

Gebze Technical University  

ICG/NEAMTWS   UNESCO – Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission - Intergovernmental Coordination 
Group for the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System in the North-eastern Atlantic, the 
Mediterranean and connected seas 

IMM 

KOERI 

METU 

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality 

Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute 

Middle East Technical University 

13 

 
 
 
 
 
 
List of figures  

Figure 1. Geographic location of the Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool in the Marmara Region. ...... 3 

Figure 2. Generic view of the coastal area close to the İstanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool. ............... 4 

Figure 3. Location of the Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool. .............................................................. 5 

Figure 4. The evacuation route to the “tsunami safe area”. ................................................................................... 5 

Figure 5. Tsunami Information Board (left) and Tsunami Evacuation Route signage (right) located in the 
proximity of the Istanbul Büyükçekmece Anatolian Highschool along the coastline. ............................................. 6 

Figure 6. Representatives of the exercise stakeholders in front of the Highschool 10min before the exercise. .... 7 

Figure 7. AFAD Istanbul Response Team across the Highschool 10min before the exercise. ................................. 7 

Figure 8. Media interviews just before the start of the exercise. ........................................................................... 7 

Figure 9. High school students are leaving the school building after the “scenario earthquake”. ......................... 8 

Figure 10. Students gathered in the high school yard. ........................................................................................... 8 

Figure 11. Scenes from the evacuation route. ........................................................................................................ 9 

14 

 
 
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