The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday formally announced of launching the Wanan No. 27 drill, which will proceed throughout September with exercises in different regions of the country, saying that the annual drill was organized to integrate military and civilian responses for coping with multi-emergency events.
"The main concept of this year's Wanan drill is to establish a system of homeland security, through which we will try to integrate the cabinet, local governments and civil defense authorities, to cope with natural disasters or military occurences in accordance with different regional situations," said Major General Lin Fang-hsuan (林芳旋), head of the mobilization department of the Reserve Command.
According to the MND, the Wanan Drill will have three stages, including war games which took place last month, "synthetic" drills of "total defense," and anti air raid maneuvers.
"The `synthetic' drill has been taking place in seven regions since Sept. 7 in Matsu," Lin said. "And county commissioners or city mayors serve as commanders in the series of drills while the military takes orders and provides support."
One part of the drill is designed to simulate the kidnapping of the Taipei City mayor.
Differing from the annual Han Kuang exercises, Lin said that the Wanan drill is "more focused" on how to properly mobilize the country to deal with emergency medical crisises, terrorist attacks, nuclear incidents and natural disasters.
"Actually, the MND already integrated its Reserve Command mechanisms to actively assist the local government by proposing preparedness efforts against natural disasters, as well as participating in post-disaster relief," Lin said.
"And the new mechanism worked effectively during the past three typhoons," Lin said. "Such was the experience with Typhoon Haima: over 1,000 soldiers waited all night and then joined in relieving victims at the first moment, which we believe successfully reduced the damage from the storm."
According to the MND's schedule, the series of drills began in Eastern Taiwan last Friday, then were held in Kinmen yesterday. The next phase will begin in southern Taiwan today, and will then move to central Taiwan tomorrow. The northern Taiwan portion of the drill will begin next Wednesday, and will end in Penghu on Sept. 23.
Each drill is arranged to hold an air-raid drill at 2pm, and then sound the all clear at 2:30pm People who refuse to cooperate with military police or civil defense staff during the air-raid exercise will receive fines.
Asked by the media to explain whether the drill in Northern Taiwan has canceled the simulation of terrorist attack on Taipei 101, Jou Nan-chyang (
"We visited Taipei 101 to explore the geography and environment of Taipei City Hall for drawing up the mayor-kidnapping simulation," Jou said. "But we did not consider adding skyscraper terrorist attack simulation into our drill."
Jou stressed that due to aviation security concerns and the ongoing construction at Taipei 101, it would be unwise to hold a simulated terror attack at the site.
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