Maritime exercise Northstar VI tests emergency preparedness of agencies
By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 23 May 2008 1608 hrs

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SINGAPORE: Singapore's largest maritime civil emergency exercise, code-named Northstar VI, was successfully concluded on Friday.

The six-hour long exercise involved over 3,000 volunteers, officials, uniformed and medical personnel in a mock fire-rescue operation.

The scenario for the exercise took place on board the SuperStar Aquarius cruise ship just three kilometres off-shore.

Some 40 fire-fighting and rescue boats were mobilized to help evacuate over 1,000 passengers and crew 'trapped' onboard to safety.

Helicopters were also deployed to help get passengers off the ship. Joining them were rescue teams from the Maritime and Port Authority and the Singapore Police Coast Guard who had only 30 minutes to carry out their task.

'Casualties' at the scene were taken care of by medical personnel and two Chinook helicopters were also deployed to airlift those with 'severe injuries' to the Changi General Hospital.

This year’s Northstar exercise involved 12 agencies from both the public and private sector, as well as volunteers from schools and grassroots organizations.

It was also the first such exercise to be held at sea and was carried out to test the ability of different agencies to deal with a large-scale fire on-board a cruise ship.

Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said the exercise is crucial to test the readiness of agencies that safeguard Singapore's reputation as an international maritime hub.

“When it's at sea, you have the additional challenge of distance, you have the challenge of water, and you may not get your resources immediately available. So the purpose of the exercise is to find out what we need to do, to beef up our capacity.”

One possible improvement, said the port authority, is to have medical personnel closer to the incident site.

In this exercise, medical points were set up at nearby Marina South Pier and Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal.

"Victims" were brought in for treatment at the Changi General Hospital's Accident and Emergency department.

The hospital says that in such cases, staff from other departments would be deployed to the A&E, but assures that other hospital operations would carry on as usual.

Mr Wong said coordination is important and such exercises allow Singapore to gauge how well it can cope in the event of a maritime terrorist attack.

And he stressed that the agencies involved have shown that they can do so effectively.


- CNA/cl