The drill included the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DPM) Centre for Region 18 (Phuket-Phang-Nga), Phuket volunteer rescue teams, the Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet, officials from the two provinces and local people and schoolchildren.
The drill was based around two different events. The first was a 9.5-Richter earthquake in the area of Sumatra in Indonesia causing a tsunami, knocking down the Sarasin Bridge, and bringing many casualties.
Sirens sounded and officials announced the evacuation of local residents in the Tha Chat Chai area (played by students from the Hongsyok Utit School), and calling for them to gather at an Evacuation Centre set up at the Mai Khao OrBorTor offices.
The second event, about an hour and a half later, assumed an earthquake much closer to home – a 4.5-Richter temblor centred on the Klong Marui fault line on the border of Phuket and Phang-Nga, causing no structural damage but resulting in road accidents.
This scenario assumed more people injured and one vehicle falling into the sea, its occupants needing to be rescued.
While rescue teams gave first aid to victims on the bridge before evacuating them, Marine Police took to the water to rescue the occupants of the “car that fell in the water”. Two were pulled from the sea by Navy helicopter.
At the Evacuation Centre in the OrBortor offices, a medical centre had been set up to treat the injured in an inflatable field hospital. Activities were coordinated from a disaster centre set up at the DPM offices in Phuket Town, overseen by Vice Governor Jamroen Thipayapongthada.
Udomporn Karn, Phuket Operations Chief of the DPM, declared the drill for 2013 “satisfactory”.
“The reason we carried out this drill was mainly to improve our communication procedures, because when there is a disaster, one of the first things that fails is communications,” he said.
“The radio network among officials is still a problem because we don’t use only the government radio frequencies but also have to communicate with volunteer teams such as the Ruamjai Rescue Team and the Ruam Katunyu Team, which are on different frequencies.
“From this drill we identified some problems which we can now fix. We will hold more drills in the future.”