Do you have enough supplies stored to get you through the first 72 hours of a nationwide emergency? Food, water, cash, medicine, ID documents, a flashlight and a radio that can receive longwave frequencies are just some of the items that should be on a survival-kit checklist, according to the European Union.

On Wednesday the bloc told national governments to roll out measures to ensure citizens and services like schools and hospitals are better prepared to deal with possible future crises, ranging anywhere from wildfires to industrial accidents, or even armed conflict.

The new strategy comes after EU-commissioned research last year pointed to gaps in countries' disaster response plans and a fragmented approach across the bloc. Brussels now aims to harmonize protocols and spur on more actions in member states.

"You need to know how to act — how to react — if the power goes off, if there's an earthquake, if there is a massive flood, or there's any type of threat. How do you protect yourself? What resources do you need? How do you yourself take responsibility?" Roxana Minzatu, EU commissioner for preparedness, told reporters in Brussels.

"It's about us exiting a reactive, responsive mindset towards potential risks and hazards and entering into an approach, into a mindset, that is about forecasting, about anticipating risks, about prevention," she said.

The plan laid out by the EU's........

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