Europe Chapter

The European Chapter of WADEM was approved by the Board of Directors in April 2023 and came together at the 22nd biennial Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine in Killarney, Ireland (9-12 May 2023). The chapter represents the 45 nations of geographical Europe, five transcontinental countries, and the islands of Cyprus and Malta. It is bound to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the north by the Arctic, and to the south by the Strait of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles Strait, the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus Strait. This offers rich diversity of culture, language, and history.

Training in disaster medicine and management of emergency situations is quite variable depending on the country. If it is highly developed in some nations, it is less so in others. In many, disaster and emergency medicine are emerging concepts. Europe is the world’s most densely populated continent and not immune to crises impacting health. In 2023 alone, the continent has experienced a wide variety of natural disasters.

February saw the particularly large earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria, claiming 58,000 lives.
Wildfires burned throughout Greece, Rhodes, Corfu, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Southern France and Sicily. 50,000 hectares were destroyed in July 2023 alone. More than 32,000 tourists required evacuation.
Torrential rains, floods, and landslides impacted Slovenia.
Storm Hans devastated Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Croatia.
Heavy rains caused major flooding in parts of Austria and Germany

Nor has Europe been spared the impact of the expanding humanitarian crisis of migration and forced dislocation. While migratory movements have been particularly significant since 2015 via the Eastern or Western Mediterranean routes, they have increased particularly since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 via the Central European routes, bringing a particularly large number of Ukrainian refugees to European countries. The European Chapter of WADEM therefore has a particularly important role to assume in the development of crisis and disaster management to address the overlapping and complex events that are becoming more common on the continent.