Taiwan’s annual air-raid drills to simulate evacuations in event of PLA attack
- This year’s exercise will assess how well the island’s 22 local governments can evacuate their residents, defence ministry says
- Drills testing civilian preparedness will be held across the island later this month and come amid heightened tensions with Beijing
In addition to testing civilian preparedness, this year’s drills will also assess how well Taiwan’s 22 local governments carry out evacuations of residents and the procedures once they are at their nearest air-raid shelters, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
Each local government will have to designate a neighbourhood – which could be a village, town, city or municipal district – for the evacuation exercise, according to Chu Sen-tsuen, personnel director at the defence ministry’s All-Out Defence Mobilisation Agency.
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“The air-raid drills will be held in turn in the northern part of Taiwan on July 24, the southern part on July 25, the eastern and outlying islands on July 26, and the central area on July 27,” Chu said.
Drills testing the preparedness of civilians will be held from 1.30pm to 2pm, and the evacuation exercise will run from 2pm to 2.30pm.
Everyone will be required to stay indoors and all traffic must stop when the air-raid sirens are activated. All individuals, government units, schools, organisations, companies and factories will be required to cooperate with relevant agencies during the evacuation drills.
“Anyone who fails to comply with the requirements will be subject to a fine of between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000 [US$956 and US$4,780] in accordance with the civil defence law,” Chu said.
At the same news conference, Lin Kuo-hua, deputy director of the National Policy Agency’s civil defence control centre, said there were 5,475 air-raid shelters across Taiwan. They could accommodate 54.4 million people – more than double the island’s 23.5 million population, Lin said.