Next emergency exercise to take place on 7 December near Osizweni

HIGHVELD – Local emergency workers were testing how geared up they are for the festive season.

The Govan Mbeki Municipality’s emergency services and the provincial emergency medical services, in partnership with the Community Awareness and Emergency Response (Caer) committee, took hands with Sasol to simulate a pollution emergency in eMbalenhle on Wednesday, 28 November.

This exercise was named “Operation Troubled Waters“.

The emergency teams will also simulate a road accident involving a Megabus near Osizweni on 7 December.

“Operation Troubled Waters” simulated an oil spill from the Sasol plant that contaminated the Klipspruit River to eMbalenhle.

It involved five fake medical cases where people who were active in the river, were affected.

This exercise helped all the emergency role players to test their response times and to sharpen up and be ready for when such an emergency occurs.

This was also an awareness exercise for the community to educate residents on the dangers of pollution.

Operation Troubled Waters warned residents to not underestimate the risk carried by drinking, swimming in or using dirty water from unprotected streams.

Observers evaluated the actions and preparedness of the emergency teams and afterwards, a comprehensive analysis was done to point out which areas of the exercise were not up to standard.

Ways to improve on the services were also tabled.

The Road Incident Management Systems (RIMS) exercise planned for Friday, 7 December, will be conducted from about 9am on the eMbalenhle/Bracken Mine road.

There will be an hour road closure between eMbalenhle and Bracken on Friday.

Road users are urged to be on the lookout on the road.

It might be best to avoid travelling this area when the exercise in operation.

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