Stakeholders test national emergency response plan |29 April 2016

A full scale exercise was organised yesterday at the port area to test the country’s national emergency response plan.

This was organised by the Division of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM), the Seychelles Port Authority and other partners

The scenario was that a warship caught fire when leaving the port and it drifted back in port and with the Seypec (Seychelles Petroleum Company) fuel tanks close by, this was a major concern for the authorities.

People in the vicinity had to be evacuated and some acted as casualties whom the first responders used to test their plans.

DRDM’s communication officer Regina Prosper said the aim of the exercise was to test the drafted National Integrated Emergency Response Plan and the communication system and for each agency/organisation to seize the opportunity and test its own emergency plan or standard operating procedures.

“It is the first time that we have held an exercise of this magnitude. The full scale exercise had a number of participants and some only tested for evacuating their building to their assembly points, and some went for the four-hour test with incidents injects being given to them. One thousand people were evacuated in the exercise, which we felt despite certain hiccups was a great achievement,’’ Ms Prosper said after the debriefing at DRDM head office yesterday afternoon.

She added that lessons learned from the exercise were mainly that there is a need to improve on our communication – internally and with each agency.

“The exercise brought insights on existing gaps that we all need to work on and we will further discuss in the exercise evaluation next Thursday. All details of gaps and existing strong points will be discussed further with recommendations for improvement,” she pointed out.