Finland has issued a new guide to help people know how to prepare for national crises and other extraordinary events.
The guide was edited and issued by the Ministry of the Interior, and posted online in Finnish, Swedish and English.
The ministry received input from a long list of collaborators, including the central bank, several state agencies and NGOs, ministries, law enforcement and rescue agencies as well as health authority THL, among others.
The ministry emphasised that the guide's publication was not meant to alarm people about potential dangers, but rather an effort to help households prepare for various extraordinary circumstances.
The online guide offers a list of situations and scenarios including epidemics, cybersecurity events, wildfires, payment system disruptions, acts of terrorism, water outages and many more. Then, it delves into further information about ways to prepare for those scenarios.
There is also a downloadable summarised version of the guide (PDF file) provided in a number of other languages, including Finnish, Swedish and English.
It explains how to prepare for crisis situations, including tips on what people should have on-hand, including keeping adequate reserves of water, food and medicines at home, for example.
Surveys suggest that people in Finland improved their crisis preparedness efforts after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but that preparedness seems to have fallen off in ensuing years.
A recent survey found that around 40 percent of people in Finland do not have adequate reserves at home to survive a longer crisis situation.
The guide will only be posted online and not be published and distributed to all households, like Sweden has done. According to the interior ministry's communications chief Eriikka Koistinen, printing the document for all of the country's households would be too costly, and it would also be more difficult to update a printed version.
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