Taipei Conducts 'Urban Resilience' Drills To Prepare for Emergencies

TaiwanPlus News

The streets of Taipei were empty for 30 minutes on Thursday afternoon as the city carried out "urban resilience" drills to prepare the public for emergencies.

Transcript

00:00As the sirens go off, the streets of Taipei empty.

00:08This is part of Taiwan's urban resilience drills held across the nation over the last few days.

00:15Military analysts say this kind of preparation is crucial for the country.

00:19Many of the resilience drills are being done across Taiwan,

00:24not only serve as a way of preparing for a potential conflict with China or any kind of related contingency,

00:31but also just basic sort of earthquake, typhoon, other sort of natural disasters that Taiwan sort of faces.

00:40Taiwan's ramping up its emergency preparedness efforts this year,

00:44combining the Wan'an air raid drill and the Ming'an disaster prevention drill for the first time.

00:49And more importantly, the country has taken the exercises to the next level.

00:54The drills this year include air raid warning broadcasts, evacuation and sheltering procedures,

01:24traffic controls, first aid training and other emergency response measures.

01:40Authorities also practiced how to distribute essential goods like rice, oil, salt and milk powder,

01:47just like they'd have to do in a real emergency.

01:49During the distribution practice, the government also last minute initiated another evacuation,

01:55telling people to take shelter, and everything really went smoothly.

01:59All the civilians went into shelter within just a few minutes here.

02:03Taipei residents say these drills went smoothly and highlighted how important they are.

02:08I think it's pretty well since, like, because we have to practice to avoid the real war happen,

02:24and I think it's a very good practice for, like, all of the people here to be safe.

02:31Though these drills happen only once a year,

02:35the central government hopes to further boost local government's emergency response capabilities,

02:40and more importantly, make sure the public knows what to do in an emergency.

02:44Devon Tai, Leon Lien, Fu Wahong, Anthony Chi, for Tawan Plus.

Category

Transcript

Recommended