Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak says that this year’s annual “Crystal Fish” typhoon drill, which took place on Saturday, identified a major problem of Macau’s civil protection work according to which officials in the civil protection system failed to “clarify rumours” spreading on the Internet during Saturday’s drill, which simulated that hearsay adversely affecting the authorities’ rescue work was proliferating online when a super-typhoon was hitting the city.
Wong made the remarks on Saturday during a press briefing at the Civil Protection Operations Centre in Pac On summarising this year’s typhoon exercise.
About 2,700 people participated in this year’s “Crystal Fish” drill on Saturday afternoon which lasted four and a half hours. In addition to public security forces officers as well as other government officials and public servants under the civil protection structure, residents who had applied individually to join the drill as volunteers and those organised by 17 community associations participated in Saturday’s drill.
A total of 420 had applied to participate in the drill, 371 of whom actually showed up and took part in the drill.
Saturday’s typhoon drill simulated that a super-typhoon named “Crystal Fish” was approaching Macau and the city’s observatory – Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) – forecast the flood level to exceed 2.5 metres above the road level in the city’s low-lying areas as the typhoon coincided with a spring tide.
Similar to exercises in previous years, one of the focuses of this year’s typhoon drill was to test the official evacuation plan for storm surges in the city’s low-lying areas.
Including the storm surge, Saturday’s drill simulated the occurrence of 60 incidents during the simulated typhoon situation.
The 60 simulated incidents included a traffic accident involving a lorry carrying hazardous items, residents in low-lying areas refusing to evacuate, a ship on fire, a traffic accident in the lower enclosed deck of Sai Van Bridge, the removal of windows at risk of falling down, and the removal of collapsed scaffolding.
In the evacuation exercise, 2,061 households in the low-lying areas were “evacuated”.
This year’s “Crystal Fish” typhoon drill was the first one after the new civil protection law took effect in September last year.
Accompanied by senior officials under the government’s civil protection structure, Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak briefs reporters at the Civil Protection Operations Centre in Pac On in Taipa about Saturday’s “Crystal Fish” typhoon drill. Photo: GCS
