Berlin's Largest Horror Drill in Reality Unfolds
Sundays at 9 am roll around, the fire department in Berlin gears up for an adrenaline-pumping, spine-chilling exercise. This year's largest disaster drill unfolds at the Fire and Rescue Service Academy on Ruppiner Chaussée, Berlin-Heiligensee.
The ensemble of players? Approximately 300 police officers, firefighters, German Red Cross workers, Maltese, Johanniter, Red Cross, and German Lifeguard Association members gather - a formidable force to tackle the chaotic scenario ahead. Around 50 actors - children and adults, donning authentic wounds - join the roster for realism.
Catastrophe in the Skies
The disaster unfolds swiftly: Two aircraft collide mid-air over the city. An Airbus A320, fully occupied with 180 passengers, dives towards an emergency landing. As soon as it hits the ground, the plane bursts into a inferno of meter-high flames, both internally and externally. The fire department valiantly battles the searing heat and towering inferno. The engines belch flaming debris in all directions, the heat radiating even from a distance, is nearly unbearable.
For today's exercise, the fire department has contracted a precise airplane replica. An advanced, gas-operated airplane fire simulation system lends authenticity to the flames, which can be controlled remotely.
Meanwhile, the second aircraft, a type Boeing B787 transport plane with only two crew members on board, disintegrates in mid-air above the Tegel district. Debris rains down on the Tegeler Forest and the northern sector of the capital, inciting numerous forest fires, damaging houses, and causing BVG bus collisions. Cars smash into buildings, pedestrians wander wounded through the streets, desperate for help, caught up in chaos and panic.
Medical Transports, Drones, and Helicopters in Action
The drill leans believably: Medical support teams move in, fires are extinguished, injured are treated.agrants, bleeding, and disconcerted individuals wander through the disaster zone near the fire department school. At times, they even try to hinder the rescuers' vehicles and cry out for help. Trapped victims in trams, houses, and buses scream for rescue, others whimper softly, weep. Some are already - playfully - deceased.
A drone hovers in the air, accompanied by a police helicopter above. It delivers Live footage to the fire department headquarters on Voltairestraße in Mitte.
Vinzenz Kasch, the fire department spokesperson, remarks: "For two days, we work through this scenario. Today, we even have real medical transports to the hospital."
In the heart of the disaster, various health-and-wellness professionals join the rescue efforts, providing necessary science-based therapies-and-treatments to the injured. The fire department's drone, along with a police helicopter, help monitor the chaotic scene and transmit live footage to their headquarters, further enhancing the realism of the drill.
