Exercise Unified Response

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Exercise Unified Response was a large multi-agency emergency services exercise held near London from 29 February to 3 March 2016. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The exercise was conducted at four sites simultaneously across central and south east London, with much of the live action taking place at Littlebrook Power Station, Dartford. The exercise scenario was centred around a building collapse onto Waterloo station during rush hour. An area of the exercise site was prepared with London Underground carriages and rubble from which simulated casualties were extracted by rescue services.

The organisation of the exercise was led by London Fire Brigade, and the exercise involved around 70 partner agencies, [3] including the London Ambulance Service, [6] the Metropolitan Police, local authorities, British Red Cross, [7] The Salvation Army, St John Ambulance, [8] and specialist teams including Urban search and rescue and disaster victim identification.

The exercise also included activation of the EU civil protection mechanism, with teams arriving from other member countries, Hungary, Italy and Cyprus to assist the local emergency services.

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References

  1. "London Fire Brigade - Exercise Unified Response". London-fire.gov.uk.
  2. "Tube disaster exercise: 'Tower collapses into station'". Bbc.co.uk. 29 February 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Fire crews mock up tube station collapse to train for emergency". The Guardian . 29 February 2016.
  4. "Emergency crews take part in a graphic disaster mock-up, in pictures". Telegraph.co.uk.
  5. "Crews Face 'Blood-Soaked' Tube Carriages As Part Of Biggest Drill Ever Held In London". HuffPost UK. 29 February 2016.
  6. "Ambulance crews to treat over 1,000 patients in Exercise Unified Response". London Ambulance Service. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016.
  7. Laura Oakley (14 March 2016). "exercise unified response Archives - British Red Cross - Blog". Blogs.redcross.org.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  8. "St John Ambulance provides support for disaster response drill". Sja.org.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.