Natural disasters have become the norm across Europe with over 200 people being killed in various disasters in 2017 while the cost to the economy from 2016 disasters is estimated at €10 billion in damages.
Earthquakes, storms, flash floods and forest fires have taken place in many EU countries, all of which have left affected countries suffering badly and in humanitarian need, and many of which required international assistance.
By Declan Keogh,
The EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism is required to undergo training and competence exercises on an on-going basis, to improve the operational cooperation in civil protection assistance and to assess the capacities of the medical teams and experts among different countries.
Contingency plans, decision-making procedures, communication to the public and the media in major emergencies are all tested in identifying further training needs and operational gaps.
As part of this EU training programme, one of the largest medial and urban search and rescue exercise ever undertaken in the EU took place in Romania. The exercise, called Seism 2018 is part of the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism’s Modulation exercise ModEX and simulates a 7.5 magnitude earthquake which struck Bucharest at 0837hrs.
This exercise will mobilise over 1000 people from many countries and involve medical teams and experts from other states participating in the Mechanism.
Emergency Times was invited to travelled to Bucharest along with a small group of other journalists from around Europe, to record this video report below and to see the earthquake exercise unfold over four-days. This episode is part one of a two-part series and is brought to you in association with RiteLite Systems, providers of Portable and Mobile LED lighting solutions for Emergency and Rescue situations.
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In this episode of ModEX Romania, we look at the alert following the earthquake, the Romanian response and their calls to the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre in Brussels to activate and international call for assistance. We also look at the arrival of the first medical teams from other countries and what resources they bring, and we look at how these countries as certified to respond, as part of the European Medical Corps.
For the purpose of this series, Emergency Times are required to report on the earthquake exercise in ‘Live mode’ and this video report exercise will be treated as a real-time disaster.
Video Report – ModEX Romania, Part 1 of 2
