TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DEVELOPING THE FIRST EMRGENCY OPERATION CENTER (EOC) OF IRAN AT TEHRAN

A review of the impacts of Iran’s recent earthquakes depicts that the lack of an appropriate Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in the affected areas, caused many difficulties in coordination of emergency response activities. This shows the importance of establishment the EOC’s in big cities, like Tehran. According to the worldwide experiences in this field, EOC’s should fulfil many criteria to be operational at the time of crisis. Besides of necessity to have earthquake resistance structure, these facilities should have specific design, architecture and infrastructures. In addition, many facilities such as damage estimation and emergency communication systems should be available at these centers. Furthermore, they need to have emergency operation systems and initial action plans as well as sufficient experts to make these centers operational continuously in 24/7. Considering these points, Tehran Emergency Operation Center has been developed during recent years. In this paper having a look on the worldwide experiences, the main items in developing Tehran EOC will be presented and discussed.