Denmark is not a seismically active country in the same sense as Italy, Japan, Turkey, or the Philippines. Major tectonic plates^A do not meet there as they do in many of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. Denmark is located within the Eurasian Plate, in an area generally considered stable, but this does not mean that earthquakes are impossible there. Even within more stable parts of the Earth’s crust, stresses accumulate and may occasionally be released as minor or moderate earthquakes.

At the same time, Denmark’s earthquake risk is considered low in global comparison. Even in the case of a stronger earthquake, estimated to occur on average once every 475 years, ground motion in Denmark would remain relatively limited, and the largest possible natural earthquake is currently estimated at a magnitude of 5.3.¹ For this reason, a major earthquake is not treated as a separate key crisis scenario in Denmark’s national risk assessment, as its likelihood in Denmark and the surrounding area is low.² This provides a fairly precise framing of Denmark’s situation: an earthquake is a real natural phenomenon there, but based on current knowledge, a devastating major earthquake is highly unlikely.

On 20 May 2026, at 16:14 local time, an earthquake occurred in the Køge Bay area, with an estimated magnitude of 3.9. The earthquake’s epicentre was located approximately 37 kilometres southwest of Copenhagen (see Figure 1), and it was recorded by all seismic stations in Denmark, as well as by stations in southern Sweden and Norway.^3,4

The Crisis Research Centre is launching the KRAKO project (Knowledge and Resilience Alliance of Key Organisers) in Tallinn to support people’s ability to cope better in emergencies and crises, and to help carry crisis preparedness knowledge forward at the local level. The project is part of the Crisis Research Centre’s wider 2026 programme, which focuses on empowering community crisis preparedness through practical discussions, learning activities and local-level cooperation.

KRAKO does not approach crisis preparedness only as a matter of supplies, guidelines or institutional responsibility. Instead, it treats preparedness as part of a broader question: how communities can better understand their strengths, vulnerabilities and opportunities for cooperation. The project’s central starting point is that official plans alone are not enough in crises — people also need knowledge, skills, contacts and trust to rely on in difficult situations.

“Crisis preparedness often starts with very simple things: whether people know what to do in the first hours, whether they know other active people in their community, and whether they are able to communicate information calmly. KRAKO helps strengthen exactly this local level, where official preparedness and people’s everyday capacity to act come together,” said Hannes Nagel, Head of the Crisis Research Centre.

The Crisis Research Centre has launched the EDENTallinn (Educational and community gardens for Disaster preparedness, Empowerment and Neighbourhood resilience) project in Tallinn, aiming to bring community and educational garden leaders, urban gardening practitioners, experts and city-level stakeholders into a shared discussion space. The project focuses on the realistic role that community and educational gardens can play in supporting food security, community cooperation and crisis preparedness in urban environments.

The project does not approach urban gardening narrowly as a hobby or environmental activity, but as part of a broader discussion on how urban communities can better understand their dependencies, strengthen cooperation and reflect on the role of everyday environments in crisis situations. “Community gardens cannot replace food supply chains or solve the question of urban food security on their own. However, they can help increase residents’ awareness, practical skills, neighbourhood ties and understanding of where food comes from, as well as what limitations may emerge in a crisis,” said Anne-May Nagel, co-founder of the Crisis Research Centre.

As part of the project, an expert seminar will be held in Tallinn in autumn to discuss the potential role of community and educational gardens in supporting food security and crisis preparedness. The project will also produce a publication that communities and partners can use to introduce the topic further and identify opportunities for cooperation. 

Singapore’s fuel crisis does not primarily appear as empty petrol stations. It appears in prices, electricity bills, shipping, refining, regional demand, and in the question of whether a small city-state dependent on energy imports can keep both its domestic market and its role as an Asian energy intermediary functioning during a crisis. If Australia’s spring 2026 fuel shock became visible through long distances, diesel prices, and local supply disruptions, Singapore’s story is different: the country is vulnerable not only because it depends on imports, but also because others depend on it.

Singapore’s smallness is deceptive. On the map, it is a Southeast Asian city-state located between the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea, with a population of just over 6 million people: 4.20 million residents and 1.91 million non-residents.¹ But from the perspective of an energy crisis, Singapore is not simply a small island state. It is a port, a trading hub, an intermediary for petroleum products, and one of the world’s most important centres for marine fuel, or bunkering. This is where Singapore’s paradox lies: the country is vulnerable because it lacks a large domestic energy base, but strong because it has built itself into a hub through which fuel, goods, capital, and trust move.

Singapore’s protection does not come from independence in the classical sense, but from controlled interdependence: it depends on the world, but the world also depends on it — more than one might assume. This means that an energy crisis affects not only the domestic market or households, but the wider system through which goods, services, and capital move across the region. In Singapore’s case, the decisive question is therefore not only how much fuel the country itself consumes, but also how much the functioning of other countries, companies, and supply chains depends on Singapore’s reliability.

Australia’s spring 2026 fuel crisis is not only a question of how much petrol costs at service stations in Perth, Sydney, or Melbourne. It is a broader test of crisis preparedness, bringing together price increases, supply security, public trust, regional inequality, and the country’s dependence on imported liquid fuels. On the one hand, it is a price crisis, because rising fuel prices quickly feed into everyday household costs. On the other hand, it is a matter of national fuel security pressure and local supply disruptions, rather than a nationwide exhaustion of fuel. Third, it is a crisis of trust: when people fear that fuel may run out, they buy more than usual, and this can create local shortages even before national stock levels have actually fallen to a critical point.^1,2

From geopolitical shock to everyday price pressure

Australia’s example is important from the perspective of crisis studies because it shows how a geopolitical event taking place far away can very quickly become an ordinary and local problem. The Strait of Hormuz is not an everyday reference point for Australian households, but in spring 2026, instability in the region became visible in fuel prices, food supply chains, road transport, regional air connections, and the political debate over how much fuel the state should be able to secure on its own. A fuel crisis is therefore not only an energy policy issue, but a test of how well a society understands its dependencies before they become visible in a crisis.

The root cause of the crisis lies far from Australia. The war in the Middle East and the uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz have unsettled energy and shipping markets. For Australia, the problem is particularly acute because the country’s liquid fuel supply chain is long, import-dependent, and linked to Asian refining centres. Australia does not depend only on the price of crude oil, but also on the availability of refined petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel, shipping routes, exchange rates, terminal costs, taxes, and retail margins. As a result, a disruption in the global energy market can reach Australian consumers even if fuel does not physically disappear from the country. The impact appears first in prices, then in supply-chain pressure, and finally in people’s behaviour.

Australia’s vulnerability does not stem only from the fact that fuel comes from far away. It also stems from how Australian society and the economy function. The country is very large, settlement is uneven, and many forms of life and economic activity require long distances. Mines, agriculture, road transport, regional air connections, ports, refrigerated food supply chains, and remote communities all need fuel every day. In some densely populated European countries, rising fuel prices may primarily mean more expensive car travel. In regional Western Australia, however, they can mean direct access to work, healthcare, school, food, and business activity. This is precisely why a fuel crisis cannot be assessed only by the price per litre. The question is also whose mobility, services, and income come under pressure first through that price.

The recent story of the “Narva People’s Republic” – an alleged initiative to create an independent “People’s Republic” on the territory of Ida-Virumaa – has relatively quickly attracted the attention of both the Estonian and international public. What began with a fairly concise report by the Estonian NGO Propastop¹ on a relatively fringe local phenomenon, which at the time indeed was exactly that, has since reached the front pages of countless national and international media outlets (despite what appears to be little genuine public support among locals).

Without going deeper into the chronological details, the story of the “Narva People’s Republic” remains a topic that is widely speculated upon and closely followed. It is emotional, attracts attention, and sparks curiosity; yet beyond what has already been covered by local and foreign journalists, the phenomenon should also be recognized — as the title of this article suggests — for its potential to illustrate the complexity of situations in which attention directed at such sensitive topics may itself create additional vulnerability.

The PIMA project brought together local government representatives from Estonia, Sweden and Ukraine to explore how community-based crisis centres providing essential services — such as water, food, heating, electricity, internet access and reliable information — can strengthen local resilience. The project was not simply about transferring Ukraine’s experience, but about understanding how elements of Ukraine’s Points of Invincibility model could be adapted to different socio-cultural contexts in order to build comparable capacity in the Baltic Sea Region. Particular attention was given to inclusiveness, accessibility and the effective use of existing local needs and resources.

In the programme, we pointed out that the Estonian Stockpiling Agency has essentially disregarded the task set by the Government of the Republic. Instead, a practice has emerged in which tasks are ignored, responsibility becomes blurred, and the result is a solution that provides reserves for 10% of the population for 30 days. According to the recent National Audit Office audit, this cannot be considered a substantively sufficient solution.

What is especially problematic is that the justification for this self-initiated choice has not been convincing. As has also been noted in public debate and in reference to the National Audit Office audit, there is no clear explanation as to why the objective of covering the entire population for 14 days was replaced with a solution that amounts to food reserves for the whole population for only three days. This raises a fundamental question: whose needs were taken as the starting point, and on what basis was it decided that precisely this volume would be sufficient?

We also emphasised that crisis preparedness cannot rest on the silent assumption that people will solve the shortfalls themselves. The average person in Estonia often lives in an apartment where storing extensive food reserves is neither practical nor possible. The main burden therefore cannot be shifted onto individuals in a situation where the state’s own task has remained unfulfilled.

We invite everyone to watch the programme, as the real gravity of the issue becomes clear in the longer discussion. This is not only a question of reserves, but of the state’s ability to meet the objectives it has set for itself when the situation becomes truly serious.

We have previously pointed out that the Estonian Stockpiling Agency does not fulfill the task given by the government: a nationwide 14-day state food reserve covering the entire population has not been established, and in reality the existing reserves amount to only approximately three days. We emphasise that although the state has begun supplying shops and fuel stations with generators and working to improve the resilience of food producers, an audit by the National Audit Office has revealed serious shortcomings and inexplicable ad-hoc practices in the activities of the Stockpiling Centre.

We stress that it is important for every person, according to their means, to have at home at least a one-week supply of food, and preferably a two-week supply. At the same time, it is unthinkable that the responsibility for building crisis reserves should rest solely on ordinary citizens. If we look at the average Estonian, they live in an apartment where space is inevitably limited. This places clear constraints on how much and what type of emergency supplies can realistically be stored at home. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect the average Estonian resident—especially in the context of rising living costs—to begin stockpiling months’ worth of food and drinking water in their apartment.