The Directorate General for Emergencies and the Interior and SFM have coordinated the drill.
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The simulation of a train derailment with multiple victims in Petra
The aim was to exercise the activation and deactivation procedures of the different organisations and services.
This morning the Directorate General of Emergencies and the Interior and the Mallorca Railway Services organised a simulation of a train accident with multiple victims to put into practice the response protocol of all the organisations that act in these types of emergencies.
In addition to the DGEI and SFM, the Mallorca Fire Brigade, SAMU061, the Government Delegation, the State Security Forces and Corps (National Police and Civil Guard), the Institute of Legal Medicine, SEIB112, the Palma Fire Brigade and Local Police, the Petra Local Police and the Red Cross were involved in the drill.
The specific objectives of this exercise, in which approximately one hundred personnel took part, were to exercise the activation and deactivation procedures of the different organisations and services; to practice the approach and decision-making of the command posts in situations such as the evacuation of a large number of affected people, care for those affected, rescue and transfer of victims, etc., as well as to evaluate the response capacity and cohesion of the participating organisations.
The exercise, classified as level 2, simulated a derailment affecting three carriages in a difficult-to-access location, just past the Petra train station on the way to Manacor, resulting in 3 fatalities and 37 injured of varying degrees of seriousness. The participating emergency services trained in situations such as, for example, cutting the power supply to the catenary in the section of the accident; cutting off traffic and cordoning off the safety perimeter; locating, rescuing and extracting the victims; triage, medical care and transfer of those affected; etc.
The Director General of Emergencies and Interior, Jaume Barceló, stressed that “the drill consisted of the activation of the PLATERBAL Plan’s Severity Index 0, in this case, simulating a train accident. These exercises are necessary to be prepared for any emergency and allow us to improve coordination between the bodies involved.
SFM’s managing director, Mateu Capellà, explained that “every year SFM has to carry out a drill in accordance with the Self-Protection Plan, although this year we wanted to carry out a larger drill with Emergencies and involving all the agents who would be involved in an accident of this type”.
The Manacor-Sineu route, in both directions, was suspended between 10.20am and 3.24pm. However, the service has been replaced with buses connecting the stops.
SFM’s Self-Protection Plan
This drill is part of the company’s Self-Protection Plan, which is updated every year and whose main objectives are to prevent and control risks to people and property in SFM’s facilities and premises, as well as to provide an adequate response to emergency situations. Apart from this type of events, the Plan includes audits and inspections of the facilities, as well as continuous training actions for all SFM employees, with different levels of demand depending on the job position held, which guarantee an exhaustive knowledge of the protocols to be followed in all types of emergency situations.
The preparation of this drill has involved months of coordinated work by all the personnel involved. For this reason, Emergencias and SFM would like to thank all the participants for their effort and involvement in making sure that everything went smoothly.