Exercise Unified Response was a large multi-agency emergency services exercise held near London from 29 February to 3 March 2016. The exercise was conducted at four sites simultaneously across central and south east London, with much of the live action taking place at

Littlebrook Power Station The Littlebrook Power Station were a series of four Fossil fuel power plant, oil and coal-fired power stations situated on the south bank of the River Thames, next to the Queen Elizabeth 2 Bridge and the Dartford Tunnel in Dartford, Kent. The f ...

, Dartford. The exercise scenario was centred around a building collapse onto

Waterloo station Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of ...

during rush hour. An area of the exercise site was prepared with

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The U ...

carriages and rubble from which simulated casualties were extracted by rescue services. The organisation of the exercise was led by

London Fire Brigade The London Fire Brigade (LFB) is the fire and rescue service for London, the capital of the United Kingdom. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act 1865, under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. It has 5,992staff, i ...

, and the exercise involved around 70 partner agencies, including the

London Ambulance Service The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) is an NHS trust responsible for operating ambulances and answering and responding to urgent and emergency medical situations within the London region of England. The service responds to 999 phone ...

, the Metropolitan Police,

local authorities Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

British Red Cross The British Red Cross Society is the United Kingdom body of the worldwide neutral and impartial humanitarian network the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The society was formed in 1870, and is a registered charity with more ...

The Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestant church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7million, comprising soldiers, officers and adherents col ...

St John Ambulance St John Ambulance is the name of a number of affiliated organisations in different countries which teach and provide first aid and emergency medical services, and are primarily staffed by volunteers. The associations are overseen by the interna ...

, and specialist teams including

Urban search and rescue Urban search and rescue (abbreviated as USAR or US&R) is a type of technical rescue operation that involves the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in an urban area, namely structural collapse due to natu ...

and disaster victim identification. The exercise also included activation of the

EU civil protection mechanism The Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO), formerly known as the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office, is the European Commission's department for overseas humanitarian aid and for civil ...

, with teams arriving from other member countries,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

and

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

to assist the local emergency services.

References

{{Reflist Emergency services in England Fire and rescue in England