Earthquake exercise for Rotorua
More than 500 Rotorua District Council (RDC) staff joined the national ShakeOut earthquake drill at 9.26am this morning, practicing the drop, cover and hold technique during the simulated earthquake.
RDC's Civil Defence and Emergency Management team took the opportunity to stage a full Civil Defence emergency exercise, dealing with the fallout from a 6.4 magnitude earthquake at a depth of 20km and located approximately 10km north of Lake Rotoiti.
Rotorua emergency services, council staff and other volunteer groups joined forces for the exercise based at the council Civic Centre where an Emergency Operations Centre was activated.
The developing scenario involved damage to a school with some casualties, major slips on the roads, closures of bridges and state highways, power outages, broken pipes, fire, rising lake water, and a number of other related events.
Civil Defence public information manager Rex Moore said the exercise gave the council a high degree of comfort that Rotorua's Civil Defence operations are in reasonably good shape to deal with such an emergency.
However we also identified a number of areas where we need to increase our preparedness and improve our systems for the future.