Istanbul.. “AFAD” conducts evacuation, planning and shelter exercises

On Friday, the “evacuation, planning and shelter” exercises began in Istanbul, under the supervision of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority “AFAD”, with the participation of 5,000 people.

In the presence of Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu, field exercises on evacuation and shelter were held, simulating an earthquake in the islands region of magnitude 7.5, as part of the disaster response training for 2022.

At the beginning of the exercises, the director of “AFAD” in Istanbul and those in charge of managing the exercises presented a report to Minister Soylu on the elements of the training and its importance.

The training operations that took place were monitored using the “AFAD-RED” system developed by “AFAD”, which simulates an earthquake affecting the 39 districts of Istanbul to different degrees, and the “Qagit Khane” region was chosen to carry out the exercises.

During the exercises, evacuation methods were applied, the affected areas were identified, the evacuation process was carried out safely from the assembly points, the sheltering of the affected people in temporary shelters, and the activation of transport operations via land, sea and air transportation.

The exercises aim to make the national and state level natural disaster intervention plans viable and to strengthen coordination among the tasked working groups within Turkey’s pest intervention plans.

5,000 personnel, distributed among 13 “disaster groups”, local support teams from 24 Turkish states, AFAD volunteers and civil society organizations participated in the training.

Also, 500 vehicles, including mobile coordination trucks, large-sized rescue vehicles, mobile centers, cameras, helicopters and drones, participated in the exercises.

He had declared 2022 the “Disaster Training Year” in Turkey to ensure coordination between the state sectors, the private sector and civil society organizations, and exercises are being conducted within the framework of the “Pest Training Year” in all of Turkey’s 81 provinces.