City administration holds mock exercise to tackle emergency.

ISLAMABAD, June 02, 2009 (Balochistan Times) -- Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration along with other concerned departments held a mock exercise on bomb blast at CDA Disaster Management Academy, sector H-11 here on Tuesday. The purpose was to check the preparedness of the concerned departments and their response and re-action time to the emergency as part of disaster management plan chalked out by the ICT Administration to deal with any likely natural calamity and other emergencies in a befitting manner. Though each department had already been informed about holding of this mock exercise, yet ,the exercise was well co-ordinated and response, re-action time and co-ordination by each department was highly professional to handle the emergency. All the concerned departments including District Administration, Islamabad Police, district health office ICT, civil defence department, bomb disposal squad, CDA Disaster Management Directorate, Fire brigade, CDA 1122 ambulance/emergency service , Traffic Police ICT, City Hospitals, Rescue 15,IESCO,Special Branch and other departments participated in the mock exercise. The purpose of holding these mock exercises is to keep the concerned departments in a state of preparedness and further improve the performance and capacity building of these departments. Chief Commissioner ICT Fazeel Asghar also witnessed the mock exercise and supervised the relief and rescue work at the site. He also appreciated the professionalism of participating responding departments and re-action time of their arrival at the scene. Duty Magistrate communicated the emergency call to all concerned regarding the incident from the district emergency operating room,ICT. ADC(G)ICT co-ordinated with the focal persons of all concerned departments and asked them to reach at the scene along with requisite manpower and machinery immediately as per SOP. Emergency call was also conveyed to the concerned through police wireless control room immediately and simultaneously. Deputy Commissioner ICT Asadullah Faiz and focal persons of all concerned departments, on receiving the call regarding the mock incident, immediately rushed and reached at the scene within seven minutes alongwith the requisite manpower, machinery, fire brigade vehicles and ambulances. Deputy Commissioner ICT established a Mobile Command Post/Quick Response Centre there along with setting up a media centre near the site of occurrence and deployed the machinery, fire brigade vehicles and ambulances at the scene. He issued necessary orders to the concerned and supervised the relief and rescue work at the site carried out by the concerned departments as per SOPs. Bomb disposal squad cleared the site and collected necessary evidence. Sniffer dogs were also used to collect the evidence. SSP Islamabad Tahir Alam Khan cordoned off the area by deploying the police force there and his team collected necessary evidences from the site. Fire fighters extinguished the fire at the site. District Health Officer ICT started shifting of fake injured persons to the hospitals in close co-ordination with the city hospitals and provided first aid to the fake injured who sustained minor injuries. SSP Traffic Dr. Sultan Azam Temuri ordered the diversion of traffic from the site to other alternate route. Thus relief and rescue work was completed at the minimum possible short time. The co-ordinated action in mock exercise taken by each department to handle the emergency at the site was highly appreciative and responding teams acted in a highly professional and co-ordinated manner to deal with the mock emergency. Their re-action time was also minimum. Deputy Commissioner ICT Asadullah Faiz also briefed the media men about the purpose of mock exercise and said that this time the mock exercise was held with prior intimation to the each department ,however next time, surprise mock exercises will also be held in order to keep the departments in a state of preparedness permanently. He told the mediapersons that a debriefing session of all concerned departments will be held in order to evaluate their performance of this exercise and making them more effective. He also appreciated the reaction time of seven minutes during which the departments reached at the scene.

(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)