Mock Dirty Bomb Attack Tests Canada’s Terror Response
February 20, 2008 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
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A mock dirty bomb explosion here Monday launched a week-long exercise to pit authorities and emergency responders against terrorists attacking Canada’s west coast.
“We all hope Canada will never have to face a terrorist attack,” said Ted Sykes of Ottawa’s defence department, who also is director of Exercise Initial Thunder, Canada’s largest ever such drill.
Sykes said the one-million-dollar exercise, encompassing a score of federal and local agencies, national police as well as Interpol, and including some 300 local “players,” involves a series of scripted challenges.
The drills aim to test whether Canada’s military technology is fit to face a terrorist challenge, and also test how well different responders cooperate with each other, said Sykes.
The operation is the largest counter-terrorism exercise to be held in Canada focused on radioactive, chemical or biological explosives, said a Department of National Defence statement.
It began here at the massive Port of Vancouver, and will move during the week to Esquimalt, a major Canadian naval base on Vancouver Island, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of here.
The week launched at 6:30 am (1430 GMT) Monday, when routine screening detected radiation emissions from two containers at the port.
Fire trucks, ambulances, police and border service officers, along with military scientists, thronged onto Ballantyne Pier, a secondary cruise ship facility adjacent to the container terminal.
“In real life, the radioactive emissions could have been detected in the container’s country of origin, but in the (exercise scenario) it was detected in this city,” said Sykes.
At mid-morning Monday, the script called for a simulated bomb to explode in one of the containers. At exactly the same time, a mock illegal human smuggling ring moved 12 fugitives past the container.
The pretend blast, which had a 300-meter (nearly 1,000 feet) radius, injured all 12 — really health care workers volunteering to act out parts as smugglers moving illegal transients.
“They were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Sykes, straight-faced.
All responders were measured for radiation exposure, and decontamination tents were set up to treat the illegal migrants, said Tim Armstrong, of the hazardous materials division of Vancouver’s Fire Rescue Services.
Although two of the pretend casualties had life-threatening injuries by the end of the day only one person had actually died, said Sykes.
And true to form in this city known as “Hollywood North” for its active film industry, the identity of the dead person was predictable.
“It was the bad guy,” said Sykes.
