Rescue teams to gather for major disaster exercise

A heads up for anyone who lives in the Portsmouth area of the UK (down south), one of the largest disaster exercises ever conducted will take place over the next 4 days. It is being portrayed as an "earthquake" scenario.

As one news article states,

The event aims to replicate a quake striking simultaneously across the UK, with similar exercises taking place at the same time in Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire and Merseyside.

On with the main details...

A MAJOR European Union disaster exercise will be staged in Hampshire in September.

It has the potential to be the largest emergency exercise involving international co-operation ever held.

Organisers are now warning that due to the scale of the operation, it may lead to disruptions in different parts of the county. The M3 services at Fleet will be particularly affected as it will be used as a strategic holding post for international responders. Rescue teams from across Europe and beyond will descend on the county for the largest urban search and rescue (USAR) exercise ever held in the UK.

Hampshire firefighters will be joined by several UK fire service teams as well as specialist international teams from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain and the United Arab Emirates for Exercise Orion

Source: Rescue teams to gather for major disaster exercise

This is about half hour from me, not that i'm going to take a look, i'll steer clear of the roads over the next few days around there.

A mate of mine (works in one of the emergency services involved) told me that this is going to be huge. Apparently it's being called an earthquake exercise, but it will enable the agencies to prepare for any major disaster, especially in these days of terrorism.

It just doesn't panic the public as much saying it's an earthquake drill.

Some other links to info on the exercise...

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service is playing host to a major European exercise this September. Funded by the European Union, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service will be taking part in a multi agency disaster exercise to test resilience and European partnership working.

Exercise Orion is being led by Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service but the practical element is being hosted at Fort Widley in Hampshire from September 6 to September 10. It will be a simulated earthquake scenario with the epicentre under Fort Widely on Portsdown Hill, outside Portsmouth. This unlikely scenario has been selected to test parts of the UK’s national resilience and how international help might be incorporated in a catastrophic emergency.

Exercise Orion will test the UK’s response to this large-scale disaster to the limit, eventually exhausting some specialist aspects of UK capacity. At this point the Cabinet Office will activate an assistance request from other countries through the EU civil protection mechanism.

Source: Exercise Orion - 6 to 10 September 2010 - (All official info from the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service)

Exercise Orion - timetable

It's going to be a busy few days around there, with a lot, and i mean a lot of resourses used up from far and wide, internationaly as well as nationaly. Military as well as civillian assistance.

Lest hope it all goes smoothly, we do seem to have a habbit of having incidents happen at the same time drills are being conducted.

CX.

Greetings CX:

Interesting how your post of Operation Orion 06SEP10 to 10SEP10 coincides with css1981 post of.

Brown dwarf generates comet swarms threaten mankind

Of which the date of 09SEP10 +/- 6days is the projected date of a possible comet impact on earth.

Anybody think that TPTB know that the impact will be in or around the U.K.

I find it interesting how these exercises take place when the possibility of disasters are imitate. Mere speculation on my part.

MODS: I hope I did the link in the proper fashion.

trinity369

Hi trinity....christ i hope theres no relation lol.....i have been through many things in my life but i could do without a comet right now.

I understand your speculation about the exercises taking place when incidents are imminent, then again that could be just a case of there being a higher chance of a particular incident so they prepare for it more.

CX.