‘Chillingly realistic!’ 1,000 actors participate in Europe’s biggest emergency response drill

Derailed trains, screaming passengers and a collapsed building – all elaborate props in Europe’s largest emergency simulation exercise held in Kent on Monday.

The staged scenario wascarried out to prepare Britain’s emergency services for a potential large-scale operation.

The £800,000, four-day Exercise Unified Response was coordinated by the London Fire Brigade and funded by the European Union.

Some 4,000 people took part in the exercise, including 1,000 actors who played injured or killed rail users.

Although the exercise was made up to look like Waterloo Station in London, the staged catastrophe actually took place near Dartford.

An entire tube station was recreated for the drill and then “destroyed” in a disused power station to recreate a tower block collapsing into a station.

Emergency services worked alongside more than 70 partner agencies for the exercise, including local councils, utility companies and specialist search and rescue teams. Disaster victim identification (DVI) teams from around the UK also joined the operation alongside forensic specialists.

London Fire Brigade commissioner Ron Dobson said the scenario had to be “realistic.”