Portugal practises for an earthquake at 11:05 on Thursday. Last year only 12,461 people did it on their own
Civil Protection's A Terra Treme drill asks schools, workplaces and households to drop, cover and hold on for one minute on 5 November. Of 782,288 participants in 2025, 68% came through schools.
At 11:05 on Thursday, 5 November, Portugal’s Civil Protection authority wants the country to stop for one minute and act as though the ground is shaking. The drill is called A Terra Treme (“the earth shakes”), the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) runs it every year, and it comes down to three moves: drop, cover, hold on.
Why one minute? Because, the organisers say, that is roughly how long an earthquake lasts.
What to do at 11:05
Drop to your knees before the floor does it for you. Cover your head and neck, ideally under a sturdy table or against a load-bearing wall, away from windows, mirrors and hanging lights. Hold on until the shaking stops. Do not run for the stairs, and forget the lift.
You can do it alone, at home or at your desk. ANEPC asks anyone taking part to register on the drill’s website, so it can see how many joined in and where.
Who actually takes part
The site publishes participation figures for every edition since 2017, and we added them up. In 2025, 782,288 people took part, the highest in the series. But the drill runs on schools: 532,827 participants came from the school community, 68% of the total, with another 237,000 from public bodies and companies.
Individuals registering on their own numbered just 12,461. That is 1.6% of the total, and under a quarter of the 56,079 who did so in 2019. Children practise in class, in other words, and most adults never practise at home.
Why bother about a risk that feels remote
Carlos Mendes, ANEPC’s director of prevention and risk management, said on Wednesday that the remoteness is exactly the worry. Portugal has gone two-hundred-odd years without a major earthquake, which leaves the country with no collective memory of what comes afterwards. The areas of highest historical risk are the Lisbon metropolitan area, the Tagus valley, the Alentejo and the Algarve, though a strong quake would be felt across the whole mainland. Nothing suggests one is imminent, he stressed, and nobody can predict when.
The other half of being ready happens beforehand. Civil Protection’s seven-step checklist covers a family plan with a meeting point, shelves fixed to the wall and a kit with a torch, radio, water and dry food for two or three days. It is the same thinking behind the 72-hour kit the EU now wants taught in primary schools, and it takes less effort than Thursday’s minute makes it sound.
Image: Vitor Oliveira / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
