How a Disaster Drill is performed in Japan (3) ?

FIRES, COLLAPSED BUILDING

The next was how to pull people trapped in a collapsed building.A fake roof parts of a wooden building was being set. Inside it was a fake man (a doll ) who trapped by a collapsed building.First what we had to know was if there was anyone who trapped inside the fake building. First the fire department ordered a well-trained dog to find the victims. The dog done it successfully. Then we checked if the man was still alive or not by shouting at him “Can you hear?”. Consider he alive, and continued to another process. We lifted the roof with a lever for about 30m height (high enough for a body to be pulled out), keep that height with some blocks or woods. Checked the stability. Then we pulled the victim out carefully. Took him to the nearest medical facilities.

lift up...lift up..

pull the body out carefully

FIRES

For a small fire, first we were asked to shout clearly “Fires!!” to attract people around. Then we were directed to bring the fire extinguisher or water. Focused the fire extinguisher or water to the source of the fire, and stopped the fire.
For a large fire, we were not directly participated, but watched how the Fire Department works with that. For me, this was the most interesting part of the training.The scenario was, a man trapped in a fire house. Downside the house, a fire brigade was trying to stop the fire from a fire engine. About 5 minutes later, a helicopter was coming! A fireman rolled down using a strong rope from the helicopter to the roof of the building, and managed to reach a window. He brought back a fake man, tighted it to his body. Then he reached the rope, and climbed back to the helicopter carrying the fake man with him. He managed to reach the door of the helicopter, and somebody inside it helped him to go inside. He, and the fake victims were saved.

Stop the fires

carrying the body

Applauses were directed to Fire Brigade from participants. Yes, it was quite emotionally impressed, it seems real that somebody helped a man from a fire. Even a boy of 5 years old besides me, looked pretty scared and supported the fireman. With all of his heart and voice he shout “ganbatte!!…ganbatte!!” (means “try hard..!! try hard…”) during the training process. Maybe he thought that it was not a training. I was touched.
Finally, the training was over. All of the participants brought back the canned food and water as a gift. It was very good experience. The seriousness of the institution and the disaster brigade, and participation of the public during the drill, were impressed me so much. It was a good cooperation.