Civil Protection Services promote workshop on search and rescue operations in collapsed structures
The Azores Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service (SRPCBA) promotes from Friday to Sunday a workshop on search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings (OPERBREC) on Terceira Island.
Members from several Fire Brigades of the Region, along with members from the Fire Service Inspectorate and the Prevention, Training and Sensitisation Department of the SPRCBA, will attend this workshop, during which there will be simulations of critical situations in several locations of the Island where the participants will put into practice various operational techniques.
The main objectives of the OPERBREC workshop will be the integration of this mission and the organisation and training of the USAR teams (Urban Search and Rescue), which were created to intervene in the case of structural collapses.
This weekend training intends to anticipate and prepare the Azorean firefighters’ participation in the International Civil Protection training “PTQUAKE09” that will take place from May 4 to May 8 in Lisbon.
In the Azores, there is an entity designated as SIE – Special Intervention Department, which is mainly composed by members with training in different areas, such as the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue), fighting hydrocarbons fires, as well as fires caused by hazardous materials and the fire-fighting module on ships.
Hence, and since the Azores are considered to be a high seismic risk area, also with a potential risk for other natural disasters, a Search and Rescue Team in Collapsed Structures was created in 2007.
The Azorean Government, through the Azores Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service, has implemented an organisation model which is able of providing timely qualified responses in technical intervention areas in the case of a catastrophe using standardising procedures (victim tracking, gaining access, rescue), in order to diminish the number of victims in structural collapses.