iranian red crescent

Practicing various relevant drill on disaster operations is one of the most prevalent methods of being prepared in responding to disasters in every community. For the IRCS Relief and Rescue Organization (RARO), as the key responsible disaster-response agent in the country, such practical drills can be as effective as possible to gain its goals. On May 2012, The RARO for the first time called for all managers, trainers and skilled relief workers to compile and develop a series of "preparedness drills" in line with their responsibilities in city, provincial, regional and national levels. The scenario covered road accident, rubble evacuation, mountain rescue, flood rescue, emergency sheltering, first aid and logistics. Different equipment used such as truck, tractor, loader, lift truck, pick-up and rescue sets. Six provinces including South Khorasan, Khorasan Razavi, Tehran, Mazandaran, Golestan and Semnan supported the host province in developing and organizing the simulated operation. A number of 387 relief and rescue workers plus 84 vehicles of different types deployed to the area. The drills help to assess the current capacities in disaster response, scale up the awareness among managers and staff concerning the disaster management and appraise the skills among the staff and relief workers on how the rescue equipment applied in the field. In this regard, the ÔÇ£Guidelines for Specialized DrillsÔÇØ developed through hours of discussion and approved by the IRCS board of managers, in order to direct and manage the drills and practices toward a real situation. It is worth to mention that a number of 8,517 simulated drills conducted over the country in different occasions. Simulating real scenes for enhancing operational preparedness, enjoying golden time to save casualties, preparing and mobilizing rapid deployment teams in responding to emergencies, using SWOT analysis of the relief and rescue teams continuously, promoting the tolerance of relief workers during unfavorable environmental conditions and strengthening the cooperation and partnership atmosphere among operational teams are the most objectives of such drills