Southern Railway conducts mock drill at Jolarpet railway yard

The Chennai Division of Southern Railway conducted a joint cock drill at Jolarpet railway yard in Tirupattur on Saturday as part of disaster preparedness and to monitor the effectiveness of relief and rescue operations in the event of an accident.

According to a press release, around 1,000 members, including personnel from Chennai Division’s Safety, Civil Defence, Railway Protection Force (RPF), Government Railway Police (GRP), St. John Ambulance, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Tamil Nadu Disaster Response Force (TNDRF), and Metropolitan Disaster Response Force (MDF) took part in the exercise.

As part of the three-hour-mock drill, an accident scene was replicated using condemned coaches and mannequins of passengers. A Self-propelled Accident Relief Train (SPART) with doctors, paramedical staff, rescue workers, engineers and emergency tools for extricating passengers from wreckage was sent to the accident spot set up for the mock drill. The NDRF, TNDRF and MDF team rehearsed the rescue and relief operation.

The exercise was monitored by senior railway officials including Ganesh, Principal Chief Safety Officer, Tej Partap Singh, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Shri Sathiya Seelan, Senior Divisional Safety Officer, Shri B. Ramakrishna, Senior Divisional Security Commissioner.

Tirupattur Collector K. Sivasoundaravalli, and Shreya Gupta, Superintendent of Police (SP), were also present, the release said.