The recent incident in Spain and Portugal, where a massive power outage affected more than 50 million people, caused widespread public outcry and demonstrated the high degree of vulnerability of modern infrastructure. Some 15 gigawatts of power – about 60 per cent of total consumption – was taken out of the grid, causing transport to stop, hospitals to shut down, retail outlets to close and communications to go down. Despite the availability of backup generators, mobile networks began to fail after a few hours: overloaded calls and exhausted batteries on repeaters led to their shutdown. In the absence of internet and mobile phones, radio became the main channel for emergency information. Through car and portable radios, authorities quickly relayed instructions and updates to the population.
This case in Europe emphasized the critical need for offline, outage-resistant sources of information. A direct analogy can be seen in the Uzbek context. Although the country is not one of the highly seismic regions, in the long term, the possibility of perceptible earthquakes cannot be ruled out. Currently, about 60 seismological stations are in operation, and the Republican Seismic Prognostic Monitoring Centre of the Ministry of Emergency Situations regularly generates assessments and forecasts for profile structures.
However, an important component of national resilience remains the availability of effective emergency communication systems. It is worth emphasizing the need to develop a single radio channel, oriented towards mass domestic radio broadcasting, through which information on the course of emergency response can be communicated to the population.
Radio, in this context, has obvious advantages: it is energy-independent – it can operate on batteries, solar panels or hand-held generators; it has a wide coverage area, including rural and hard-to-reach areas; and it remains easy to use and accessible to all segments of the population.
The European incident thus highlighted the structural vulnerabilities of digital dependency and emphasized the need to invest in resilient communications channels. In the context of possible natural or man-made disasters in Uzbekistan, radio may become a key link in the public security system. In this regard, it is advisable to increase attention to the development and integration of autonomous radio networks as a strategic resource for national emergency preparedness.
* The Institute for Advanced International Studies (IAIS) does not take institutional positions on any issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IAIS.
