Disasters: Find out where the federal emergency meeting points are

The Swiss population can now consult the location of emergency meeting points on a Confederation website. These locations have been defined by the cantons in the event of large-scale damaging events, disasters or emergency situations.

With emergency power and a secure radio link with the emergency management, emergency meeting points are to be used when the usual means of communication are no longer available. They act as the first point of contact for the population, who can receive information from the authorities, make emergency calls or be directed to other services depending on the situation, for example water distribution stations drinkable.

As a general rule, each municipality has a meeting point of this type, or even several for larger cities and towns, the Federal Office for Population Protection (OFPP) recalled in a press release on Friday. The cantons or municipalities decide to put them into service, generally completed within a few hours.

Emergency meeting points are operated by the cantons. The OFPP is responsible for coordination, in collaboration with the cantons. Its new website, in four languages, provides a detailed overview of emergency meeting points in 21 cantons and Liechtenstein, as well as a direct link to the websites of these cantons, which contain more information.

Other cantons have yet to define the location of their emergency meeting points. For its part, the Confederation will ensure that information on these emergency meeting points is better integrated into the Alertswiss application in the future.

www.pointrencontreurgence.ch