Qatari Rescue Team Conducts Successful Mock Drill
The search and rescue mock drill operation conducted on the sidelines of 4th Civil Defense Exhibition and Conference concluded on Tuesday, 12/11/2013 afternoon at Ras Laffan Emergency and Safety College facilities. Search and rescue teams from GCC countries, Jordan, France, New eland, Russia, Holland, Singapore and Spain participated in the mock drill excercise.
Captain. Khamis Mohamed Al Muraikhi, head of the Conference Committee and Field Exercise stressed that the exercise has succeeded in attracting and gathering the largest possible number of search and rescue teams from the GCC, Arab and European countries in one field and this has helped to achieve the exchange of expertise between the teams.
Search and rescue team of Qatar, 45 participants from UAE search and rescue team,
five participants from each of Oman , Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, three participants from Bahrain and a number of participants from Jordan , France, New Zealand, Netherlands, Russia , Switzerland, Singapore and Spain took part in the excercise that started two days ago, said Capt. Al Muraikhi.
He added that the exercise was designed according to the guidance plan of the UN, as the exercise scenarios were distributed among all participating teams and it is worth mentioning that the exercise continued on Monday for more than 8 hours and it reached to 10 hours on Tuesday.
The aim of the exercise was exchange of expertise between participating teams and this goal is adapted from the aim of the conference, which is to promote coordination between search and rescue teams participating in the exercise, so that the institutional mechanism of action will be existing and this will contribute to the formation of Gulf and Arab Search and Rescue Team in the future .Explaining about the exercise scenario, Captain. Al Muraikhi clarified that the scenario was happening of a mock disaster in a populated area that lead to the collapse of a hotel and houses, which needed the rapid intervention of a fully integrated and coordinated rescue teams in order to save the largest possible number of survivors. Talking about the process of coordination between the GCC countries to participate in this joint exercise, Al Muraikhi said that, Qatar proposed an initiative at the General Secretariat of the GCC countries for the activation and coordination between the Gulf search and rescue teams and this was the outcome of that initiative.
In response to a question about the mechanism of classification of teams and is the Qatari team is an internationally classified team, Capt. Al Muraikhi said that the UAE, Omani and Jordanian search and rescue teams are the only teams among the Arab countries classified by the UN and the State of Qatar is working on the classification by the UN, which is a standard developed by UN to organize search and rescue teams and this was established aftermath of a quake, which was attended by many countries of the world, but the language of communication among them was missing, which made UN establishing a special office to assist States wishing to enter the field of search and rescue.
He then added that the Qatari search and rescue team has participated in more than 32 search and rescue operations at international level and its potential and aspiration are beyond classification and features of its members are efficiency in the field, performance and activeness at work and the benefit of classification is organizing the work performance.
In an interview with the members of the participating teams, the head of Russian team Mr. Gregray said that we have a unified system in the search and rescue operation and all teams work according to this internationally approved system and the existence of a unified system helps us a lot in the execution of rescue and search operation. By our participation along with Qatari team in this mock exercise, I am confident that the Qatari team will get the international classification certificate by the UN.
Answering a question about the opinion on the expertise of Qatari team in search and rescue operation comparing to the Russian team, the Russian team captain said that the Qatari team is in a very good standard and the mission of all search and rescue team is saving the lives of the people and the difference is only in the methods and ways used for the operation.
The New Zealand team participates for the first time in a joint exercise with an Arab team and we are very happy on well-organized arrangements here. The Qatari team’s performance was excellent and was at international standard as it uses the same internationally followed Unified system that we use and I am impressed by the standard of the performance of Arab teams in the search and rescue operation, said the head of New Zealand Search and Rescue team Marfilbinorusian.
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http://emergencytrauma.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/moi001.jpgFoto('s) geplaatst met toestemming van rechthebbende