Europe Media Monitor (EMM) reads and analyses around 40.000 new news items per day from around 1000 sites worldwide. The text of the items, extracted using EMM's own text extraction algorithm, is indexed using Lucene (see http://lucene.apache.org). Please make sure your area of interest is not already covered by one of the pre-defined categories (alerts). If it is, we kindly ask you to use the feed from that category as this significantly reduces the load on our system. This site is a joint project of DG-JRC and DG-COMM. The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer (see http://europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm). Please acknowledge EMM when (re)using this materialhttp://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/312IP/11/312 Brussels, 11 March 2011 Japan earthquake / tsunami: the Commission activates Europe's civil protection system At the request of Japan, the European Commission activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism to provide assistance in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the country on 11 March.Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:05:00 +0100dg-comm-frfrdg-comm-fr-c636e833bd4d22f2ed52152cfadef0e7FrontexBorderDisputesEnvironmentECnewsNaturalDisastersCitizenshipCivilProtectionCrisisResponseKristalinaGeorgievaManMadeDisastersHumanitarianAidEU-CaribbeanEU-PacificEU-JapanEU-LatinAmericaEU-Asia35.6831 139.809