Norfolk hosts major mock disaster

17.June. 2003:

It is one of our greatest living fears, but the fallout from an accident involving nuclear weapons was played out in a Norfolk forest on Monday.

In the heart of Ministry of Defence land at Wretham in the west of the county, 1150 Anglo-American armed and emergency services and other agencies tested their emergency response to the kind of disaster that would threaten the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people.

Blood-splattered victims were rushed away from the devastation to hospital, while scientists, clad in boiler suits, began the containment process so critical to preventing others being contaminated by nuclear material.

The scenario is this: a US military aircraft suffers a mid-air disaster and crash lands into the Norfolk countryside, scattering its lethal cargo across a vast area. The MoD says such a disaster is extremely unlikely, but if anything world events have heightened public fears about a catastrophe involving nuclear weapons, particularly over a possible attack on this country.

Operation Dimming Sun – unlikely or otherwise – is of immense importance to all of us. In the event of such an incident, a lack of readiness would be doubly fatal.

MoD spokesman Miguel Head said the exercise had been planned to take place in 1999 but had been held up at least twice, firstly by events in Kosovo and then by war in Afghanistan.

About 1150 personnel were taking part, 650 from the UK, including police, firefighters, ambulance staff and county council chiefs and 500 US personnel during the three main days.

Not a great deal is known about the exercise, but the spokesman said it was "vitally important" and denied any cover up. He denied the exercise was costing the reported £10m.

"There is secrecy, but we're not trying to cover anything up at all," said Mr Head. "Because it's an exercise we didn't want the agencies to know what was going to happen or else they would have been prepared and we didn't want any problems like that.

"If something were to happen for real we'd need to make sure, and we don't want anything getting in the way of a genuine exercise. We were just trying to keep things as hassle free as possible."

Mr Head denied claims the public was being kept in the dark about the operation and said reports would be publicly available afterwards.

"The lessons learned will be distributed to all other county councils across the country and placed on public record," Mr Head said. "This exercise could have taken place anywhere in the country, and Norfolk is lucky – they'll have first-hand experience."

The key to the operation to such a disaster is clearly a co-ordinated, multi-agency approach. Among those involved are US and British military personnel, Norfolk Health Authority staff, the Environment Agency, local hospitals, the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, and voluntary groups including the Red Cross and North Norfolk Civil Protection Volunteers.

At County Hall – which has a nuclear bunker in the basement – 200 staff played out their role, while in London members of government departments took part.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram will today come to Norfolk to play himself and face a mock press conference with 30 or 40 journalists.

EDP reporters yesterday spent hours trying to gain access to the operation, but our photographer and reporter were prevented, while groups of mock journalists were treated to press conferences and briefings at police headquarters as the real media were left in the cold.

Norfolk police, who had put out a brief statement simply saying the operation would be taking place, refused to comment.

Even, an international phone call to the Pentagon in Washington DC received a flat "no comment".

The MoD's Clare Cridland said the scenario of a military aircraft crashing with nuclear weapons was unlikely, but strategies needed to be tested – at no extra cost to the taxpayer.

Asked about the relevance of such an exercise, she said: "It's as important as it's ever been. We've been doing these sort of exercises for 10 or 20 years in various areas and maybe this time it has a higher profile because of world events."

END