Just as in a real emergency, the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is being activated so rescue teams will receive satellite images of the disaster zone.

It begins with a train derailment, and then the situation gets worse. Train wagons of fuel begin to burn, the fire spreading to pressurised tanks of liquefied gas until one of them explodes violently, even as a passenger train stops nearby.

Secondary fires reach wagons of hazardous chemicals giving rise to toxic and corrosive fumes that drift past nearby houses. Casualties are being poisoned and seriously burned...

The Euratech 2005 exercise has been occurring between April 10 and 14 at the town of Portes-les-Valence in the French department of Drome. Its name is short for 'European Technological Accident'.

A large number of different French groups are participating in Euratech, including the town and prefecture authorities, railway operator SNCF, local and regional fire services, the police and National Gendarmerie, the Ministry of the Interior and the French Army.

The exercise scenario has been designed to be sufficiently serious to justify activation of the European mechanism of mutual cooperation in civil protection.

So additional rescue teams will be mobilised from Belgium, Germany and Italy, coordinated by the European Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) in Brussels, which has been providing active assistance during disasters for the last three years.

Within France the emergency response will be coordinated from the Interior Ministry's COGIC centre (centre op�rationnel de gestion interminist�rielle des crises) in Asnieres near Paris.

It is from COGIC that the request for the activation of the Charter on Space and Major Disasters is made. The request is passed to the on duty engineer at ESA, who analyses it and passes it on to Charter members to take action.

Both the French space agency CNES and the German Aerospace Centre DLR are participating in Euratech 2005, making SPOT 5 and IKONOS satellite imagery available.

Once the images are acquired they will be transmitted to the Strasbourg-based firm SERTIT for processing and interpretation before delivery to COGIC.

Serving as they increasingly do in real emergencies, high-resolution satellite images provide up-to-date maps of buildings, roads and railways for planning responses to a disaster and carrying out rapid damage assessment.

The Euratech 2005 exercise began on April 10, with the two-day simulated disaster officially commencing the morning of April 12.

Part of the aim of Euratech 2005 was to showcase the benefit of European institutions to the continent's citizens, and the exercise concludes with a daylong seminar on the setting-up of a European civil protection rapid reaction force.

France's Minister of the Interior Dominique de Villepin will attend the exercise and welcome high level officials from other countries and the European Commission.

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain is due to address the seminar on how the Global Monitoring and Environment and Security (GMES) initiative of ESA and the European Union to develop an independent global monitoring capability has the potential to assist such an organisation, along with current Agency work on satellite telecommunications for disaster relief.

This latter subject is also being convened at the French Senate in Paris on April 29, 2005 jointly by the Agency and the French Civil Protection Agency.

Related Links
International Charter on Space and Major Disasters
Agenda published for Civil Protection event
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express