Hundreds of officers in earthquake training... despite only 11 British deaths in 1,000 years







Hundreds of police officers have spent three days training for a massive earthquake this week, even though such an event will almost certainly never happen in Britain.

Officers from Hampshire, Hertfordshire and Merseyside took part in the exercise to plan for a tremor measuring 8 on the Richter scale.



Even the disaster that hit Haiti on January 12 this year, killing more than 230,000 and making more than a million homeless, measured only 7.



Exercise Orion: Emergency services from across the UK are taking part in a major exercise simulating an earthquake hitting a fictional British town... even though such an event will almost certainly never happen here

Disaster in Hampshire: The event is one of the largest to have been undertaken. It is aimed at testing the response of the emergency services to an 'unthinkable' disaster In fact, the biggest recorded earthquake to hit Britain occurred in 1931 and measured 6.1.

One woman in Hull died of a heart attack and the head of the waxwork of notorious killer Dr Crippen is also said to have fallen off at Madame Tussauds.

Only 11 deaths in Britain have been attributed to earthquakes in more than 1,000 years. But during the exercise, reported in the Police Review magazine, a mock disaster scene included burning cars, 'collapsed buildings' and more than 600 actors and amputees.

Sergeant Colin White, a crime scene manager with Hampshire Constabulary, worked on disaster victim identification at one of the sites near Portsmouth.

He told the magazine that the event - called Exercise Orion and given nearly £1million by the EU - was a 'unique test' and 'very realistic'.



Drill: Firefighters at Croxteth Fire Station in Merseyside tackle a blaze as part of the exercise Other earthquake scenes - also involving firemen, ambulance crews and even helicopters - were set up in Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire and Merseyside.

Pete Crook, of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, said it was 'about exercising the unthinkable'.

He said: 'Exercise Orion is deliberately being organised to challenge all teams to the limit. That is why we have chosen the unlikely scenario of an earthquake, because the UK is not accustomed to such incidents.'

One officer, who did not want to be named, said: 'It's all very well and good preparing for a giant earthquake, but you might as well plan for a meteor strike or a volcano.

'Both are about as likely to happen in the UK as an earthquake like the one which hit Haiti. It just seems like a lot of manpower being used to deal with something which is not just extremely unlikely, but dare I say impossible.'

Simulated: A collapsed road is mocked up to give emergency workers the sense of a real disaster

No expense spared: A Chinook helicopter lands at Croxteth Fire Station with search and rescue teams The last 'major' tremor to hit the UK was one measuring 0.2 on the Richter scale which hit Lincolnshire in February 2008 - injuring one man who broke his pelvis.

A spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance added: 'Those police should have been out fighting crime, not working on unlikely or imaginary scenarios.

'Taxpayers would question whether this is good value for money. They want their police officers to be well trained, but this is clearly taking those police officers away from their duties for an event which is seriously unlikely to ever happen in Britain.

'At a time when the police are facing massive budget cuts, they need to consider where it is absolutely necessary to deploy the resources they have, and use the resources they have wisely.'

The British Geological Society said that on average there were between 200 and 300 earthquakes a year in the UK.

Realistic: A 'casualty' lies awaiting help from rescue workers Back in Hampshire, firemen carry a body out of the simulated disaster zone



