HONG KONG – Fire and rescue personnel from Guangdong province and Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions completed a joint emergency response and rescue exercise in Jiangmen, simulating the occurrence of a strong earthquake.

Beginning on Monday, the three-day exercise followed a blueprint under formulation by the governments of the three places – the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Emergency Response and Rescue Operational Plan.

In the 48-hour joint exercise, named “Liancheng-2024”, a strong earthquake was presented as taking place in Jiangmen’s Pengjiang district, affecting a wide swathe of territory and causing multiple buildings to collapse, people to get trapped and casualties to occur.

Guangdong’s Fire and Rescue Corps requested support from rescue teams across the mainland. Upon notification, the fire services teams from the two SARs immediately deployed personnel to assist the rescue operation.

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The Hong Kong Fire Services Department deployed a total of 27 members from its disaster response and rescue team, five fire appliances and over 400 items of rescue equipment.

Rescue teams from the three places conducted independent and joint operations in 11 different rescue scenarios, including a high-rise building rescue, a tilted building rescue, a collapsed container-based rescue, a rubble rescue, a mudslide rescue, a vertical shaft rescue and a cable-car rescue.

Angus Wong, deputy director of Fire Services (Operations), said in a command meeting that the exercise had demonstrated the efficient deployment of rescue resources among the three places, which will consolidate this experience to optimize the relevant operational procedures and enhance the efficiency of cross-boundary rescue efforts.

The GBA Emergency Response and Rescue Operational Plan aims to develop a comprehensive and systematic emergency mobilization and coordination mechanism that will strengthen capabilities for responding jointly to disasters and incidents in the Greater Bay Area.

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The governments of the three places are expected to sign the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Emergency Management Co-operation and Greater Bay Area Emergency Response Operation Cooperation Framework Agreement in Hong Kong in mid-June to boost the emergency response management and strengthen the emergency response as well as rescue capabilities.