The Union Civil Protection Mechanism is one of the biggest contributors to the affected population in Turkey and Syria. At the same time, Chile is supported to fight wildfires. European Civil Protection teams, UCPM teams, and in-kind contributions are assisting these affected countries.

At the same time, the EU HNS TTX is in the final phase of preparations. The opportunity to fulfill both needs, response missions, and exercise preparations show the performance of the consortium. DSU of Romania, the consortium lead responded to the earthquake with two modules, and contributions of relief goods, IGSU of Moldova sent also a USAR module to Turkey, and experts of the EXCON were members of responding USAR modules.

Meanwhile, the EXORG (exercise organisation) had to replace participants who were deployed on short notice to Turkey, find new flight arrangements, and inform new participants. The last tasks for a successful exercise had to be continued, from certificates to office equipment, transportation planning and other logistics, venue management, visibility and dissemination, there should be no room for coincidences.

“Special thanks go to our partner in Moldova, IGSU (General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, Ministry of Internal Affairs) and our partners from the travel agencies, who helped us to manage all challenges” so Dr Bogdan Pop, the Project Director.

The VR-supported tabletop exercise will be conducted at the new training center in Răzeni, starting on Tuesday afternoon with the national exercise and will end on Friday, 24th of February. The implementation of virtual reality together with the online e-learning course (developed by DIE KRISENPLANER) were some of the innovations of the project EU HNS. “The visualisation of complex situations for tabletop training is of great importance to get the “mission feeling” for the participants” adds Josef H. Riener, Project Manager of the EU HNS TTX.

Stay tuned, from next week on we will cover the exercise with daily postings!