July 16, 2004
LONDON (AFP) - Britain is to stage its biggest-ever mock terror alert which will see thousands of emergency workers respond to a supposed poison gas attack on a public venue.
Around 400 volunteer "casualties" will also be deployed for the exercise, to be held on Sunday at an as-yet undisclosed location in central England.
More than 2,000 ambulance staff, fire officers and police from around the West Midlands region will test their response to the supposed attack, regional emergency planners said.
They will decontaminate the volunteers -- cutting off their clothes and putting them through a special disinfecting shower -- before sending those deemed most seriously injured to hospital.
The location of the exercise is also being kept secret from those taking part, so as to make it as realistic as possible.
The simulation, known as Exercise Horizon, was not a response to any particular threat, said Helen Braithwaite, deputy director of the Regional Resilience Team, based in the West Midlands.
"While Exercise Horizon is probably the largest civilian chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear exercise of its kind in the UK so far, what is being tested are not questions of scale but the coordination of resources and communication between the different organisations involved," she said in a statement.
"Training exercises are important, as they ensure that we are prepared to respond to any kind of mass contamination incident, whether resulting from terrorist attack or an industrial accident."
Last September emergency services in London staged an exercise based on a supposed chemical attack on the London Underground, or subway system.
Britain, and especially London, has been on high alert for possible terrorist atrocities, with some security experts saying it is likely to be more a question of when an attack happens rather than if.
Last week Britain's most senior police officer, John Stevens, announced his intention to retire with a warning that terrorism remained a menace.
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